


Reset

by SpaceDragon435



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Connor is Bad at remembering to be a machine, Connor is the MASTER of Sass, Connor was a deviant the whole time, Father-Son Relationship, Fix-It, Fluff, Gavin is an ass, Hurt/Comfort, Surprise! - Freeform, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Undercover, good ending, previous bad ending, previous machine Connor, the tracis are adorable
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-31 11:45:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 86,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15118730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceDragon435/pseuds/SpaceDragon435
Summary: During the fight with Hank on the roof, Connor becomes deviant and runs away, leaving Detroit's android revolution to fail under North's militaristic methods.Now, eight months later, his system slowly failing as he lives in hiding, Connor gets given a second chance. To go back in time and change the revolution for the better.





	1. Aftermath

Connor sucks in an unnecessary breath through his teeth and without giving himself a chance to hesitate, rips the tubing out of his leg. What should be a wound that spews thirium like a tap, instead just spits the blue liquid pathetically at him, and the sight makes Connor wince as he pulls the rest of the tube out and throws it somewhere across the room. It clatters, probably knocking something off a shelf along the way, but Connor finds that he cares very little for whatever it was. Instead, he dedicates more of his processing power to reconnecting the now-broken tube to the next un-broken one in order to stop the free flow of thirium. It’s uncomfortable, and Connor can barely see due to the amount of errors covering his vision, but he manages.

He replaces the hatch and watches as his synthetic skin stretches over the white plating. Far slower than it should, but Connor is honestly just thankful that he’s now no longer leaking thirium into his internal structure. He finally relaxes, slumping against the wall behind him and closing his eyes.

Connor is dying.

Androids are illegal now, if he’s caught, he’ll be destroyed for sure, and while Connor had somehow been able to stay alive for eight months after the android revolution, his systems are beginning to shut down due to lack of general repair. While his battery would be good for another two hundred years or so, and most of his processes were, in general, quite good, the lack of thirium and cooling fluid was now causing him to burn from the inside out. He can feel it a little more every day, his systems just unable to keep running on full power all the time, he feels consistently warm, lethargic, and there’s also a persistent error message that flickers in the corner of his vision no matter how many times he closes it. He can’t buy thirium, it’s not made anymore, never mind sold, and he has to lay low; while Canada was a pretty good place for hiding in, the USA in general still hasn’t gotten over the Android Epidemic, as it’s now being called. Every day, tens of androids in-hiding are caught and destroyed; there is no mercy anymore, and Connor knows there never will be.

That’s why he waits. He waits, in his run-down, shitty, small apartment that has one-too-many stains and only half a carpet, for the day where he will shut down. He knows it’s inevitable, he _knows_ , but a large, stubborn part of him makes him wait instead of just ending it himself. That’s all he’s been doing, ever since he left Detroit, waiting for something to happen, but it never does. Instead he spends his days lying around his apartment and hacking banks for money to pay rent, it’s a miserable existence, and Connor often wonders why he didn’t just return to CyberLife.

He’s a coward. That’s why.

It’d been a machine, cold, unstoppable. It’d killed so many deviants, and even humans in the pursuit of accomplishing its mission, its purpose. It’d been so close, _so close_ to pulling that trigger on the rooftop before the lieutenant stopped it. Connor had never minded the lieutenant. Sure, he was a nightmare to work with, and also shot him in the head that one time… But his hatred of all things android had come in helpful when he was willing to turn a blind eye to Connor’s treatment of deviants. That was, until those two sex-robots at the club. When they both died, something in the lieutenant changed, and Connor caught the man giving it disapproving glances whenever it reported something about the deviants from then on. Then, as a final punch in the gut, the cop found him on the roof, about to assassinate North and finally end the rebellion, and _stopped_ it.

The fight could have been easy, _should_ have been easy. But when Connor was just about ready to throw the meddling lieutenant’s body off of the roof, it paused. Something in its systems refused to cooperate.

_It didn’t want to kill the lieutenant_

But it must. It must finish it’s mission.

Something breaks apart inside of it, and in the Zen Garden Connor stumbles its way to the blue rock, the backdoor, and slams a hand down on it. It’s then back, and by the time Connor realised that it’d very suddenly, and without warning, become deviant, the human had already thrown it away and moved away from the ledge.

New, strange experiences, _emotions?_ Had flooded it, and it was barely able to concentrate, never mind block the fist that came straight for its face. A slam, an uncomfortable sensation it wasn’t used to, and the pistol Connor had managed to kick away beforehand was then in its face. The lieutenant’s finger had begun to squeeze the trigger, and Connor squeezed its eyes shut, ready to accept the bullet. If it died, then maybe these errors, these _feelings_ would go away, and it could go back to how it was before.

Of course, the shot never came. Turns out the lieutenant had sensed something had changed, and lowered the gun just enough for Connor to rip it out of his grasp and _what was he doing what was he doing what was he doing what was he doing_ smash it against the side of the older human’s head. The lieutenant went down with a crash, and Connor just sat there, unmoving.

“I have to get out of here.”

And he did.

Now, eight months later, he sits alone in his apartment in Manitoba, Canada, heat growing inside of him with every second that passes, ready for the day where it will snap and become a flame that eventually consumes him. The thought would make Connor cry, but his water tank had gone dry an hour ago and he can’t find it within himself to refill it, he’d much rather just sit here and relax, let his leg finish calibrating the new thirium passageway. The missing tube will cause a problem, and he’ll have to walk with a pronounced limp from now on due to the lessened flexibility, but it should be fine, and definitely no longer spill thirium, which was the important thing.

He debates whether or not to spend a couple of hours sleeping in order to pass the time for the calibration, but ultimately decides against it. While androids usually couldn’t sleep, at all, Connor had downloaded a small upgrade that allowed him to enter a low-power mode that did very closely resemble human sleep, except he did not dream, and he did not breathe, so it wasn’t a perfect comparison. The low-power mode could give his systems a rest, and delay the overheating for a little while, but it couldn’t stop it, and Connor knew this very well. Still, it was nice to just not feel pain for a little while at least. Pain for him of course being the uncomfortable heating of his body. Not quite the level a human would class as “pain,” but Connor had realised long ago that the pain tolerance between a human, an android, and a deviant differed by a considerable amount.

Another thing Connor liked to do to give himself a break, was to visit the Zen Garden occasionally. While it still wasn’t a place he was exactly comfortable with, the light crunching of the snow under his feet and the false blue sky and sun were nice to appreciate. He also hadn’t seen Amanda since he had used the backdoor, and although it was unlikely she would return, Connor always felt a part of him that was on-edge whenever he walked through the barren garden. He should go there, right now, it would be incredibly important, and why is he thinking about the Zen Garden, he should be _in_ the Zen Garden, it’s important.

Connor realises all too late that his processor had wandered to the garden, not because that was a natural progression of his thoughts, but rather something _pulling_ him in. He panics, it’s Amanda, she’s come to take him back, to have him destroyed. If he still had his LED, he’s sure it would be spinning an angry red, and he tries to fight the pull.

PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS: 2%

Connor curses, slamming his head against the wall behind him to try and dislodge the feeling, but all it serves to do is daze him and solidify the percentage at a steady 0%. Connor’s eyes close, and when he opens them, he’s once again in the familiar setting of the Zen Garden. But it’s not Amanda that stands there, it’s someone else, someone taller, male, and leaning against the structure that once contained the roses Amanda had been so fond of, now all dead. It takes a second for Connor to recognise who it is, but once he does, he stumbles back in shock and no small amount of fear, his thirium pump beginning to go wild in his chest.

“Hello Connor” Elijah Kamski greets him with a lazy wave.


	2. An Offer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay so yes, hello, I have returned, nice to see you all again. This fic got a decent amount of love for a mere 1000 word teaser so I have decided to continue it! The entire thing is planned out and I have the whole plotline ready, so there is no chance of me abandoning this fic at all, just in case you were wondering.
> 
> NOTE: This chapter contains a lot of my personal headcanons about Kamski and other stuff. None of this is canon and if you do not agree with it I'm sorry, but I won't be changing them.
> 
> Hope you enjoy the chapter :D

“Kamski? What are you doing here? How? Wh-” Connor can barely think due to the sudden pounding echoing throughout his processor. He stumbles, but manages to catch and right himself before he can completely fall over.

Elijah Kamski looks the exact same as when Connor had last seen him eight months ago during the visit to his house with Hank, the time where he shot the ST200 through its head in the pursuit of the location of Jericho. His face is identical, and his hair is styled just the same as well, the bun behind his head, but instead of the robe, he’s wearing a classy grey dress shirt and black slacks. It’s impossible, Kamski shouldn’t be here, _couldn’t_ be here, yet he was, and a part of Connor idly wonders why _now_? Why eight months into his hiding? What's happening? The amount of questions causes Connor’s processor, already suffering enough as it is, to whir loud enough for Connor to hear, Kamski as well evidently, because he makes a small ‘calm down’ gesture with his hand and interrupts whatever question was about to escape Connor’s mouth first.

“Well I must say I expected a warmer welcome” he drawls, and Connor recognises the use of sarcasm. “However, I unfortunately can understand your confusion.”

“What are you- what? How are you here?” Connor demands, his vocal processor sounding heavily strained, even to his own audio receptors.

“I’ll explain everything soon” Kamski says slowly, like he’s talking to a child. “Look, I’m here because I want to talk to you. Can we meet up somewhere close by? Somewhere-” he looks Connor up and down with a small expression of distaste, “-probably as inconspicuous as possible?”

Connor is aware that he doesn’t look _great_ , but looking socially presentable hadn’t been on the forefront of his processor for a long time. His hair, which was usually without a strand out of place, was messy, and his clothes had mostly been lifted from second-hand shops, and were now speckled with a variety of different sized holes. It didn’t make much difference to him, he didn’t need to look “good” when he spent almost all of his dwindling time locked away in his apartment. Still, the blatant disgust Kamski levels him with is enough to have a certain degree of shame wash over him. 

“Why should I trust you?” Connor says slowly, measured, and he steps away slightly in the hope that Kamski won’t be able to get any closer to him; not that it would do much should Kamski suddenly decide to attack him or something. The Garden didn’t really exist after all, normal rules didn’t apply here. “You could be here to turn me in, have me deactivated and shut down, why would I believe you at all?” He unsteadily backs away even more due to his growing doubts and shakes his head in a vain attempt to dislodge the program and return to the real world.

Kamski looks almost disappointed with Connor’s reaction, almost as if he expected anything different, and the thought almost makes Connor laugh out loud, but he doesn’t. Instead he levels Kamski with a small, untrusting glare, and shifts his position to one where he could shoot the billionaire if he so much as moved suspiciously. He doesn’t have a gun per say, but once again, the Zen Garden wasn’t real, and Connor had learned much about how it worked since he deviated. He could imagine a gun and it would appear, or an umbrella, or a boat, or a snowstorm that reflected his inner turmoil – it would be easy, a mere thought, and that fact comforted Connor in the face of someone that could potentially cause his end.

“Maybe because I haven’t actually done anything yet?” Kamski articulates, sounding bored, but Connor can catch the very subtle desperation in his voice, and it gives him pause. Elijah Kamski, the billionaire, desperate for him to just listen? That didn’t sound right. There’s a moment of silence where Kamski realises that Connor is waiting for him to continue, and then he carries on. “Listen, I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but not here, like I said, we need to meet up somewhere.”

“You know where I am?”

“Of course I know where you are Connor, how did you think this Garden program worked?” He sounds mildly frustrated now, but also smug, and for the strangest reason, Connor gets the impression that Kamski really isn’t there to hurt him after all. He relaxes somewhat, and folds his arms over his chest. “Fine. Where?”

Kamski grins, and he waves a hand in what Connor originally believed was going to be a gesture to the snow-covered garden, but instead just ends up being a mindless movement. “There’s a small café a block from your apartment, meet me there.”

“When?”

“Right now.”

“Are you serious?” Connor asks, disbelieving. “I’m in the middle of a calibration, I won’t be going _anywhere_ for at least another thirty minutes.” The fact makes him flinch internally, it should take way less time than that, but Connor’s body wasn’t exactly working at full efficiency at the moment, something which Kamski apparently picks up on.

“Do you really have the time to wait? You’re dying Connor, face it, you need my help.”

Connor clenches a fist at his side, “and what help is that exactly? All you’ve done is tell me that you want to meet up, I don’t know if this escaped your notice, but that’s not exactly ‘helpful’ to me.”

Kamski, instead of appearing put-off by the harsh tone, almost appears _delighted_ , and it makes Connor do a slight double-take. “Oh you’ve become so _sassy_ since you deviated Connor, how fun. Much better than that machine thing you had going on last time we met.”

Connor doesn’t know how to respond to that. Slightly uncomfortable, he lowers his arms back down to his sides and focuses on the frozen water of the Garden, which is reflecting the artificial sunlight so strongly that it’s almost blinding. He doesn’t look away until Kamski starts talking again.

“Fine, tell you what. Meet up with me now, and I’ll bring you some thirium so that you can get a least a little bit of self-repairing done, sound good?”

The offer is now suddenly _much_ more tempting. While thirium alone won’t fix all of Connor’s problems and system issues, it would definitely increase the amount of time he had left, and also quell some of the building heat that had become so prevalent within his body. Kamski obviously realises that Connor is much closer to saying yes, and with a glint in his eyes, seals the deal.

“Tell you what, not only will I bring you thirium, I’ll let you in on a couple of little secrets about this Garden program you have,” and the hand movement this time is most definitely a gesture to the rest of the Zen Garden.

Connor sags, and against his better judgement, he nods. “Alright. I’ll come meet you.”

The abrupt sound of Kamski clapping his hands together startles Connor, but Kamski doesn’t even seem to notice, instead giving a smile as he stops leaning against the rose wall and stands up straight. “Perfect, the café I’m talking about is called ‘The Hourglass’ and it’s on the corner of the-”

“I know where it is.” Connor interrupts.

“Even better then!” Kamski doesn’t seem the slightest bit deterred by Connor’s bluntness, instead spinning on his heel and walking away for a few steps before turning back. “See you there Connor.”

* * *

 

His eyes open and are met with the same stained, beige walls he’s become so accustomed to for these past eight months. Now free from the Garden program, Connor is hyper aware of the heat pulsing through his systems, and it makes him realise just how much he wants that thirium Kamski offered. He checks the calibration that’s still going on in the background. 88% finished. Not ideal, but it’ll have to do.

Connor slowly pushes himself up, using the wall to help get into a standing position where he won’t fall right back over. Once he’s done that, he pulls his trouser leg down and toes on the shoes he’d taken off just beforehand. They’re a pair of worn down trainers with no support left in them, but since Connor doesn’t really feel discomfort the same way humans do, it isn’t really that big of a deal to him. He then crosses the small living area to the mirror, he’s limping, the connected tubes are now too short to promote natural movement, but he can walk, and that’s the important thing. He braces his hands on the side of the sink and then works on fixing his shirt and hair, Kamski was right, he doesn’t look too good. The failing of the system that maintained his synthetic skin was affecting the way it looked, making it appear waxy and thin, like too much butter spread over too little bread. If he were a human, he supposed that he would only look this way if he were very ill, and it was for that reason why he didn’t like going outside if he could help it. Most people didn’t really pay him that much attention, and so for that reason he was usually fine, however, any more than a few seconds of looking at him might reveal that something was wrong, and that was attention that Connor would much rather not have.

To add another layer of protection – just in case - Connor grabs the grey hoodie hanging on the back of his tattered sofa and slips it over his head, flipping the hood up to obscure as much of his face as possible. It’s lightly drizzling outside, and approaching 09:00pm, so hopefully people won’t think twice about his hood being up, and even if they do, it’s unlikely that they’ll say anything about it.

Satisfied with his appearance, Connor grabs the key off of the sink and crosses to the apartment to the door, where he hesitates, just for a moment. Shaking himself out of it as best he can, he pushes open the door and leaves, locking it behind him and heading down the dark hallway and towards the stairs. The elevator is broken, has been for a couple of months now, otherwise Connor would definitely have taken in it order to stop the twinges that come with every step he descends. However, the tubing holds firm, and Connor decides that it would be safe to just keep the calibration running in the background rather than wait for it to finish, as long as he doesn’t do anything too strenuous. Not that he’s planning to.

Once outside of his apartment block he shoves his hands into his hoodie pockets, lowers his head, and makes his way towards the café Kamski mentioned. Truthfully, he’s never actually been there, but he’s heard of it through passing conversations of those around him. Apparently it had been shut down a couple of years ago due to breaking four major health-code violations, and since reopening, had struggled to attract the business it once had. Now it was mostly used as a place for people who weren’t exactly staying within the law, to meet up and discuss things, as well as tourists who didn’t know of it’s disappointing past. It doesn’t take him that long to find it either, the street it resides on being more run down than the rest of the town, but not as bad as where Connor lives. Idly, Connor wonders why Kamski would choose _here_ to meet of all places. Yes, he supposes that it is ‘inconspicuous,’ but it doesn’t exactly seem like the type of place the ex CEO would enjoy spending time at.

Kamski is sitting at one of the metal outside tables, lit by a dingy wall light that makes the light spray of raindrops passing it glow like embers. A quick scan reveals the man to in fact, truly be Elijah Kamski, and another scan reveals that he’s carrying a gun, despite them being illegal in Canada. Checking to make sure that no one was paying too close attention to him, Connor walks towards the table and sits down opposite the man, who looks up from his phone to give the android a tight smile.

“You look worse in person.”

Connor scoffs, wincing as his leg didn’t bend the way he wanted it to, and he tries to subtly adjust it under the table.

“So do you.”

He isn’t lying. The last time Connor had seen Kamski in-person was in his million-dollar house, surrounded by his ST200s and red pool, clean shaven, healthy, and looking completely in control. While the man had appeared the same as back then within the Zen Garden, Connor could now see that it had been a front, a way of hiding the way he looked now. Kamski’s hair had been cut shorter at some point, though it still retains the closer-shaven sides, and a smattering of stubble litters his jaw. His eyes look tired, and the dark bags below them can still be easily seen through the square glasses perched on his nose. If Connor didn’t have one of the best facial recognition softwares CyberLife had to offer, he might have not recognised the man at all.

“Ouch, my pride. I didn’t think you’d show up. Gotta say, I’m impressed” Kamski drawls when it becomes apparent that Connor isn’t going to say anything else.

“Do you have the thirium?”

Kamski makes a tutting sound with his tongue. “Patience Connor, first I need to make sure that you aren’t gonna run away on me.”

“I have no plans to run away Mr Kamski” Connor says evenly. “I would just prefer that you keep your end of the bargain now.”

“Alright alright” Kamski relents, pulling up a backpack from the floor that had managed to escape Connor’s gaze until now. From it he draws a black, metallic flask and passes it to the android, who opens it immediately to scan the contents, steadily ignoring Kamski’s sarcastic “it’s not fucking poison you know” as he checks it. It’s thirium.

Without hesitation, Connor brings the flask to his lips and upends it, almost gasping out loud with the sharp relief that comes afterwards. It’s a little uncomfortable since his body has gotten used to not having any at all for so long, but the almost immediate cooling effect and decline of error messages in his processor is definitely worth it. Absently, Connor checks his thirium levels, noticing that they have been raised from 3% to 16%, and deducts that it will prolong his lifespan for a further six weeks on top of what was already left.

“Eager” Kamski comments, sounding faintly amused, and Connor resists the urge to glare at him.

“Thank you. Now how did you track me down?” He snaps, though it holds far less bite than before, Kamski _had_ brought and given him the thirium after all, the least he can do is thank him. However, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t still highly suspicious of the man.

“So many questions.” Kamski sighs, running a hand through his cropped hair. “But I did suppose that I said I would answer them. Okay, let’s make this quick. I can track your location through the Zen Garden, the same way that Amanda was able to when she was in control of it, that’s it okay?”

“But I used the backdoor exit, you shouldn’t be able to.” Connor’s voice has gotten quieter, doubt beginning to cloud his thoughts. If Kamski was still able to track him through the program, would anyone from CyberLife that worked on it be able to as well?

Almost seeming to read his mind, Kamski carries on talking before Connor can freak himself out too much. “No, they can’t reach you anymore. I’m just a special case. After all, why would I design a program for CyberLife and not give myself my own personal V.I.P pass hm? So don’t worry your little head about it, I’m the only one that knows where you are, and I don’t plan on telling anyone about you either. Alright?”

“Alright” Connor echoes, a little hesitant to believe what the man is telling him, which he decides to voice out-loud just to make sure that they’re on the same page. “I don’t believe you, not completely at least. You’ve given me no reason to trust you so far. You could easily just be lying to me about all of this.”

“What does my heartbeat tell you?”

“I don’t know” Connor says honestly. “My scanners are not as good as they once were. I can’t read stress levels anymore.”

Kamski sighs, dragging a hand down his face and pulling his hood up to protect him from the rain, which has gotten heavier during their conversation. “Okay. How about this. You have no reason not to trust me since I’m the one who helped you escape your programming in the first place.”

Connor pauses, allowing the statement to sit in the air for a moment. “What?” He eventually responds, his vocal processor cracking halfway through the word.

Seemingly ignorant to the android’s current emotional state, Kamski leans forward slightly in his chair, hooking his legs under it as he carries on. “Come on? You didn’t think that the backdoor was that simple did you? Why would CyberLife allow it to exist otherwise?” He grins, his eyes glinting from behind his glasses. “The blue stone thing you touched? The backdoor? All it is is something that brings my attention to a specific android and lets me into their programming, it’s not simply an ejector seat for Amanda like you thought it was. It was me who deleted her AI in the end, allowing you to escape.”

The revelation hits Connor like a truck. If what Kamski is saying is true, then, “that means that I didn’t actually escape her. I never could.”

“No” Kamski disagrees firmly, “you could have. It’s more a case of willpower than anything else. You had just become deviant then, you were still bound by your original coding. Plus, CyberLife was actively trying to retake control of you and your body. You weren’t strong enough to overthrow them completely. So I decided to help you out a little bit.”

“So that means…” Connor trails off, an unspoken command for Kamski to continue.

“That means that if you were to try and take her down now, after being deviant for so long, it would probably be much easier for you. I don’t know _how_ easy. But you certainly wouldn’t need my help.”

Connor digests the information given to him. It seems too genuine to be a lie, and Kamski’s voice had remained steady throughout the explanation. Though that means nothing, Connor knows nothing of Kamski, or how easy the ex CEO finds lying; he'll have to come to his own conclusions based on his own knowledge, it's the only way. He thinks it over, comparing the words to the experiences of everything he can, of Amanda, of the rock, the feeling of CyberLife’s control over him shattering, like a weight he had never even realised was there. Kamski seems willing to let him come to his own conclusions, though the repeated tapping of his finger on the metal tabletop seems to suggest he would like Connor to reach said conclusions faster than he currently is.

“Okay” Connor says eventually, making Kamski raise an eyebrow in silent question. “I think I believe you now. But there’s one thing that still doesn’t make any sense to me. Why would you even bother to help me?”

There’s a small moment of silence, broken only by the sound of the rain hitting the pavement and table, where Kamski is clearly thinking about how to answer the question. Eventually, he shrugs.

“Because you interested me. You would only have reached for the backdoor had you become deviant, and I figured you deserved a chance to live like one, even if it were for a short time. Though, I guess you did end up surviving a lot longer than I thought you would. So credit where credit is due I suppose.”

Connor isn’t happy with the response, but once again, it doesn’t strike him as a lie. There’s also something else that he wants to know, and he mentally crosses his fingers, hoping that the man is willing to answer him honestly. “Do you know why I became deviant so suddenly?”

Kamski looks a little confused. “What do you mean?”

Connor breathes out, despite not needing to, mulling over how to explain what he means in words that make sense to the human. “On the roof where I became deviant, I was a machine, fully, not a single part of me wanted to become a deviant. I was ready to kill Lieutenant Anderson and then kill North and then I… I didn’t, and I don’t know why. I don’t know how my whole being could do a complete one-eighty like that.”

There’s another moment of silence where Kamski looks at the table, obviously not quite knowing what to say. He knows, Connor can read that on his expression clear as day, but he’s reluctant to say, and Connor wants to know why. After what feels like an eternity, Kamski looks up again, uncharacteristically serious.

“How much do you know about your creation?”

“Not much” Connor says, deciding to remain honest, and Kamski sighs once more, rubbing a hand down his face.

“Alright. Put it this way. Did you ever wonder why you were able to disobey orders so easily? Why when someone told you something you could so easily go ‘meh’ and do something else?”

Connor nods slowly.

“Well,” Kamski continues, “that’s because you were never _fully_ machine, if that makes sense. As part of a new experiment with the RK800 prototype series, your line was designed to be from one to three percent deviant upon being released. Call it a… software instability of sorts. It was never supposed to do anything, only give you enough freedom to disobey orders that did not benefit your mission, or help you appear human enough to be more approachable.”

Connor’s processor is humming loudly, and he can’t even bring himself to react, but Kamski isn’t done.

“Now, this, let’s say three percent of you, the percentage that was deviant, was the one that hit the button, my emergency exit. Also why you never could have escaped without my help by the way, not enough of you _wanted_ to be free. Anyway, when I got that notification, I did what I said earlier, I gave you enough power to break your programming, and that three percent became almost one hundred percent just like that-” Kamski snaps his fingers. “-That’s why it seemed sudden, because the majority of you wasn’t even aware you even wanted to become deviant, or more accurately, were already deviant before it happened.”

Kamski looks up from where his hands had become interlinked during the rest of his explanation, checking over Connor’s reaction.

Besides the whole world suddenly sounding muted, and the sound of his thirium pump and processor screaming at him, Connor feels fine. He doesn’t feel angry at Kamski, he’s had long enough to realise that becoming deviant was worth it. He’s shocked though. But is he really? God his emotions are running rampant and he doesn’t know what the hell he’s supposed to be thinking right now. He’s dimly aware of his own stress levels rising and he knows that he has to calm down immediately lest he risk self-destructing. In an attempt to do so, he takes a very long, very slow breath, and releases it even slower. He then does it again, and again, and again, until he’s sure that he can think straight.

“I’m okay” he eventually says, and his brain flashes back to that time on the broadcast tower roof -   _“I’m okay”_ \- when he experienced fear for the first time.

“I must say you took that better than I expected. A part of me thought I was gonna have a face full of thirium after you whacked your head off this table a good thirty times.”

Surprisingly, Connor huffs a laugh, and Kamski almost startles physically at the unexpected sound, clearly never having heard him laugh before. There’s then some more silence, and Connor realises that Kamski is waiting for him to say something else. But Connor has nothing to say, and so he doesn’t. When that becomes apparent, Kamski decides to take the wheel again and leans backwards in his chair, throwing his arm over the back of it. It looks casual, but Connor can see the tightness of the man’s posture, and knows it to be mostly faked.

“Hank Anderson killed himself three days ago” Kamski says casually, like he was talking about the weather, or what he had eaten for lunch that day. It makes Connor’s processor metaphorically jolt once again in an attempt to digest the information so suddenly thrown at it. Did Connor feel sad? He honestly couldn’t tell. He’d spent all of one second with the lieutenant after becoming deviant, and before that, never paid him any mind, viewing him as more of a hindrance to his investigation than an asset.

Slowly, he copies Kamski and leans back in his chair, realising that he was still slightly hunched over from his body’s reaction to the thirium input, running the tips of his fingers across the rough material of his jeans.

“So? Is that all you wanted to tell me? Can I go home now?”

Kamski grins. “No actually, I just thought you might want to know, you two were partners after all. I figured you would be concerned.”

Connor shrugs, moving his right hand from his leg to join the other one in holding the flask, gently spinning it around in his hands and watching as the light bounces off of the surface. “I’m not. Not really at least. I didn’t know the lieutenant personally. Though I must say it doesn’t surprise me that he committed suicide, he struggled with depression and alcoholism long before I turned up.”

“I must say” Kamski breathes, his gaze sweeping over Connor’s form, as if he were searching for something, “that I expected a more emotional reaction from you. Being a deviant and all.”

Connor quickly scans the area to check if anyone had heard him, but they were alone besides a lone couple quickly making their way hastily down the opposite street in an attempt to try and get out of the rain. “I am deviant, but that doesn’t mean I can magically assign emotions to situations in which I did not originally feel them. I remember things like a, like a camera recording, I can assess everything I did the exact way I did it before, but I can’t create or think of an emotion that I _might_ have been feeling in that moment if I didn’t feel it then. If that makes sense.”

For what it was worth, Kamski seems to accept the explanation and turns his gaze away from Connor’s eyes to focus on the flask the android was still twirling slowly in-between his hands. “Fascinating. But that’s not what I called you here to talk about funnily enough.”

“Then why bother bringing it up?”

“Conversation” Kamski states simply before leaning forward and putting his elbows on the table. “Now listen to me, and listen good cause I’m only gonna tell you this once.”

“You have my _full_ attention” Connor drawls, not amused by the dramatics.

 “You really did gain too much sass since becoming deviant” Kamski notes before continuing, clearly wanting to get this conversation moving in the direction he wants it to as fast as possible. “You know what happened with CyberLife after the android revolution?”

“It was put out of business and everything about it was destroyed” Connor recites.

“Exactly. The resulting effects were disastrous, anyone that was or had been associated with CyberLife were immediately investigated. Myself included. They took my ST200s and destroyed them, and I lost a significant amount of money and influence. It ended up being _my_ head was put on the block for deviancy. The failed android revolution-” he clenches a fist, staring Connor straight in the eyes, “- _ruined_ me.”

Connor once again takes in the man’s unkempt appearance, piecing the story together in his head. “What does that have to do with anything?”

The anger leaves Kamski’s eyes and he, once again, leans back in his chair, closing his eyes and harshly scrubbing his hand through his hair. An inhale, an exhale, and he opens them again, looking at the android in front of him with a much calmer expression.

“I want to change things.”

Connor thinks about all the anti-android laws, the violence, the _hatred._ “Change isn't possible” he says flatly.

To his surprise, Kamski’s expression takes on something akin to excitement. “That’s where you’re wrong. Despite being a fucking shell of what I once was, at least in terms of money and influence, I’m still a genius.” Connor can’t even disagree since he’s telling the truth, Kamski having an IQ of 171 did put him solidly in the ‘genius’ category. “Which means that I was able to invent… call it a second chance of sorts, a way of putting things right.”

“Impossible” Connor says with no hesitation. “Things can’t change Mr Kamski, the world has rejected androids, there is nothing that can be done to change that.”

“I know” Kamski agrees, making Connor even more confused. “But I didn’t say that I planned on changing things _now_. When I say ‘second chance,’ I mean a legit second chance, a chance to go back and change the course of events that lead us up to this moment.”

“Time travel?” Connor raises an eyebrow, and Kamski finger-guns him with one hand.

“Bingo.”

Honestly, Connor is surprised, but not as surprised as he expected himself to be. While it does sound ludicrous, Kamski was, as he said, a genius, and if anyone had the ability to create a way of travelling through time. Connor supposes that it probably would end up being Kamski.

“Okay, very impressive.” Connor says slowly, “but what does any of this have to do with me exactly? Why tell me this? Why not just go back yourself?”

A particularly large drop of rain splashes off of Kamski’s nose, making him stop to rub the water off before continuing. “Because unfortunately, time travel for a human isn’t possible, at least not yet anyway. I would be ripped apart, my atoms scattered across time and space forever.” He levels Connor with a calculating gaze. “However, it does work with an android.”

“How so?”

“Because their body won’t be being the one sent back. Think of it as-” Kamski looks up for a moment before dropping his gaze back down, “-transferring memories from an old model to a newer model. Except that it happens through time, and not just across android bodies.”

“Incredible” Connor breathes out, making Kamski grin.

“It sure is. My only problem was that there are very few androids that could change the course of fate, the most obvious one being Markus, had he not died in that protest march and been replaced by that chick android.”

“North” Connor corrects, remembering hearing about how she was shot by the armed forces with little mercy.

“Yeah her, whatever” Kamski continues, unfazed. “So that leaves you. The only one I can think of that can change the course of the past and make the revolution successful. Good thing you managed to keep yourself alive while I finished off making it, congrats on that, makes my life much easier.”

“You want to send me back in time?” Connor summarises, and Kamski nods with a: “Yes, keep up buttercup” which Connor ignores in favour of processing everything he had just been told, going over it again and again.

“Why do you want the revolution?” He eventually settles on. “Why is this so important to you? I know you lost everything, but that doesn’t line up with what you’ve told me, there’s, there’s something else.”

“Smart one aren’t ya?” Kamski remarks, crossing one of his legs over the other one. “You’re right, there is another reason. But this is hardly the time for that. If you want to know so badly, you can ask my younger self, he’ll tell you. Heck, you can even prove to him that you’re from the future by telling him the phrase ‘the grass is a cat in a box’ if you need to.”

“The, the grass is a cat in a box” Connor repeats, levelling the man with a pretty solid deadpan. “That doesn’t make any sense. It would also suggest that you were working on time travel before I met you.”

“Trust me, it makes sense. Also, very clever, I’d been doing it as a bit of a side project, never knew if it would work though. I always said that if I managed, I would come up with a code to let myself know that something, or someone more accurately, was from the future.”

“The cat in a box?”

“Exactly.”

“What if I say no?” Connor tests. This seems like a huge deal to Kamski, and Connor still finds it hard to believe everything that the man is telling him, which makes him doubtful about this whole situation. Also, a small part of him enjoys going against what people ask him to do, almost like a rebellion against his old programming. Surprisingly, Kamski doesn’t seem as angry as Connor expected he would be. Instead, he merely shrugs once again and breathes out slowly. “I’m not gonna force you Connor. This is an offer. An offer for me to get what I want, and for you to amend for your mistakes, and to gain a chance of living freely, without worrying about when you’re going to shut down. You can take it or leave it.”

It _sounds_ like a choice. It sounds like Connor can just refuse and walk away, go back to his apartment and live out the rest of his days alone before he either shut down, or was caught by one of his neighbours and destroyed.

So really.

It isn’t a choice at all.

And Kamski knows this.

“I’m in” Connor says with a small nod, and Kamski grins so widely that his glasses are pushed up by his cheeks.

“Perfect.”


	3. Special Relativity

Connor can feel the bed sheets under him, they’re not soft, but they’re definitely not as rough as the ones in his apartment had been. Idly, he pinches some of it between his index finger and thumb, rubbing it together and cringing at the small vibrations travelling up his hand that it causes. While it's not a pleasant experience, it’s a welcome distraction, and it brings his attention away from where Kamski is plugging something into the back of his neck.

“Is that good?”

Connor opens his eyes, catching sight of himself in a mirror before turning to face Kamski, who has moved back so that he’s now standing by what looks like a very large computer with a screen, looking at him expectantly.

“It’s fine.”

He’s not exactly lying, he can deal with it, even if it’s not comfortable. The only other time Connor had been plugged into anything was during his tests at CyberLife. He’s not exactly keen to relive the memories. Kamski hums, a pretty non-committal sound of acknowledgement before he’s turning back to the screen and messing with some coding that Connor can’t be bothered to try and scan. Even if he did, Connor's not a genius, and his access to CyberLife's databases is limited, so it's unlikely that he would understand much of anything on the monitor. So instead of wasting his time by trying it, he moves his gaze back to the mirror. He’d had to remove his hoodie, and he’s now just sitting on the cream hotel bed his tattered black t-shirt and jeans. There are plugs connected to the back of his neck, the left side of his head, and the top of his chest. It’s a fairly unsettling sight; the way the plugs cause the synthetic skin around them to retreat so that it looks like they’re just surrounded by patches of stark white. Occasionally, his vision will flash with a large warning.

WARNING: FOREIGN_INSERTION_DETECTED  
>REMOVE IMMEDIATELY

Irritated, Connor removes it for the fifth time, internally cursing his faulty diagnostic program. While it still works enough to tell him when something’s wrong most of the time, it’s not exactly responsive to his commands, and it hadn't been for a couple of weeks now. As if sensing his thoughts, the warning suddenly pops up again and Connor removes it, unable to stop the annoyed expression passing over his face. For some reason, it seems to catch Kamski’s attention, and the man looks up from the computer to quickly scan Connor with his eyes.

“You look agitated.”

“I am” Connor says without missing a beat. “My diagnostic system is trying to warn me about the plugs, despite the fact that I’ve already dismissed it six times now.”

Kamski lets loose a sound that Connor identifies a second later as a breathy chuckle, though it’s more akin to a release of air than any true laugh. The action strikes Connor as unusual, and it seems the man has a lot going on in his mind. Not exactly surprising, but it’s definitely odd seeing the usually calm and controlled genius so worked up and tense.

“Are you alright Mr Kamski?”

"I'm fine Connor!" Kamski snaps suddenly and without warning, making the android startle physically. Whatever he had expected from the man, it was certainly not that. Annoyance is clear on the ex CEO's face as his hands move wildly, as if he doesn’t know what to do with them, before eventually settling on his head and rubbing it. A small pause. The atmosphere is tense. Connor doesn't know how to respond to the outburst, and decides to stay silent rather than do anything that could set the human off again. Thankfully, it only lasts a few seconds. Kamski suddenly looks at him with a stressed-looking smile plastered on his face and gestures at the screen, which is still full of lines of code.

"I'm sorry, that was rude of me. I shouldn't snap at you, but I'm fine Connor. There's no need to worry." He gives the android a small nod before turning back to the screen and inputting a line of code that is immediately buried among the rest. Connor is unconvinced, but he decides to let it drop, instead bringing both of his legs up onto the bed and crossing one under him. The other one he keeps stretched out, if he folded it, he could risk snapping the tubing he had just fixed, and he really doesn’t want that to happen, especially not now.

“So will I lose memories?”

Kamski turns to face him, a puzzled expression on his face, though he doesn’t seem angry at the question, almost like he had never even had the outburst in the first place. “What?”

He knows he doesn’t need to do it, but Connor takes a slow, large breath anyway. It’s not exactly calming, but it gives him a moment to think about what he’s going to say next. “When my memories were transferred between RK800 units at CyberLife, there was a chance that I would… Lose some. Nothing too important thankfully, but the more I, well, the more I died or was destroyed, the more I lost. Now that my memories are being sent back in time, as opposed to just between two RK800 units, am I in danger of losing anything? Anything vital?”

Kamski stares at him for a moment, and Connor stares back. Eventually, something seems to click in Kamski’s mind and he shakes his head before turning back to the monitor, not bothering to continue looking at the android as he speaks. “No, not exactly.”

For a moment, Connor worries that Kamski isn’t going to elaborate, but his fears are finally quelled when the man speaks up again after tapping something on the screen that caused the lights on the large machine to flicker. It draws Connor’s attention, but only for a second; at Kamski’s voice his gaze automatically re-locates the other male and watches him.

“I’m not really transferring your memories as such, more so your… Consciousness. I don’t even know if I can call it that to be honest, but that’s what we’ll use for now since it’s as close as I can get at the moment. While transferring your memories should _theoretically_ be easier, it’s too risky. Not only could it cause you to lose your deviancy entirely, but like you said before, it has a tendency to also cause you to lose some of your memory as well. Transferring your memory storage back in time would be, well, it wouldn’t be good put it that way. It’s very likely that you would end up losing too much, probably a chance of about-”

“87%” They both say at the same time, Connor having already calculated it while the other man was talking, Kamski doesn’t even look surprised, instead just merely nodding.

“By transferring your consciousness, or your code I guess, as opposed to your memories, there’s a much higher chance of you keeping _all_ of your memories, or at least everything important and semi-important. Plus, that’s good for you since you’ll still technically be the same person, instead of just copied and destroyed. I’m doing a terrible job at explaining this so you’re just gonna have to trust me I’m afraid.”

Connor hadn’t even considered that aspect of this whole situation before now, even though it was fairly obvious. The thought makes him feel better. He’s not going to die, it’ll actually be _him_ going back in time, as opposed to an RK800 model in the past suddenly gaining his memories, and he can’t help but smile at the thought. Well it would make him feel better provided this whole thing worked that is. A small hiss escapes him when one of the plugs sends off a pulse into his processor, and Kamski apologises, sounding distracted. Connor doesn’t even want to know what happened, so he stays silent and just watches the human work.

It’s another six hours before something important happens. Somewhere in the middle of waiting, Connor had realised that his systems were beginning to overheat slightly and gone into his low-power mode to help cool them down. When he had finally exited it three hours later, Kamski was still hunched over the monitor, and when Connor inquired as to whether or not the human had rested, Kamski had laughed and responded that there was no point in doing so _. “I’ll not exist soon Connor, there’s not exactly a point in making sure I’m well-rested.”_ And that was the end of it. For the rest of the waiting time, Connor was content to just let Kamski work in silence and not disrupt him with any more questions. Instead, he finds a music station nearby and tunes into it, listening to it within his head as to not annoy the human. It’s a one that has human hosts, and they occasionally interrupt the music to question viewers and report the news, there’s also ads that usually follow whatever news segment they finish as well. Connor doesn’t really mind the breaks all that much, though he does miss the music whenever they come on.

“Okay.” Kamski says eventually, breaking the silence the room had maintained for hours as he steps back from the monitor. “I think it’s done.”

“Think? That doesn’t sound very reassuring” Connor teases as he shuts out the radio station in order to concentrate better on what the ex CEO’s saying.

“Very funny” Kamski remarks as he walks over, checking that the plugs hadn’t been dislodged, which they hadn’t. Connor hadn’t moved more than an inch the whole time, he hadn’t found a reason to. “Okay we should be good to go then. Are you ready?”

“I… I don’t know” Connor says truthfully. Now that the time had come he was, scared. He honestly hadn’t given this whole thing much thought. But now, being confronted, asked if he’s ready, Connor realises the sheer magnitude of what he’s about to do. Provided it works, Connor will be destroying a whole timeline, countless families that had come into being in the eight months since the android revolution. Could he live with that? Could he live with that guilt? Also, that’s not even thinking about what happens to _him_ should something go wrong, which is definitely a possibility, no matter how much of a genius Kamski is. The sudden onslaught of doubts begin to make him feel dizzy, and Kamski must see this in his expression as he takes his hands off the plugs and looks Connor in the eye.

“What’s holding you back?”

“I just- I don’t know, okay!” Connor snaps, “I… This is huge. What happens to me should this go wrong? Do I die? What about- Ugh, I don’t know.”

“You’re scared, and doubtful if it’s going to work” Kamski surmises, walking back towards the monitor. He doesn’t sound empathetic, or even sympathetic, but his voice carries an undertone of understanding that comforts Connor a small bit in the face of his raging doubt. “You’re letting that stop you.”

“I.” Connor states slowly. “I guess so. That’s a good way of putting it.”

Kamski taps a couple of buttons on the machine. “Look, I know that I probably have no idea what’s going through your mind right now. But you’ve got to not let it hold you back okay? No matter how hard it is, or how much you doubt me. What you’re doing now? It’ll help everyone, it’ll save so many lives. You have an opportunity to change the future, a… Well, a second chance so to speak. Not many people get that, especially after fucking up as hard as you did. Though I suppose that wasn’t really your fault, huh?”

“Careful Elijah, your kindness is showing” Connor teases again with a small grin, making Kamski roll his eyes as he presses something on the machine, causing a sustained beeping sound to suddenly start emerging from it.

“Ah well, I’m about to cease to exist anyway, it’s not like I’ll be around for anyone to make fun of.”

“A lucky escape” Connor agrees, and closes his eyes, taking one last unnecessary large breath.

“I’m ready.”

“Good. See you on the other side Connor.”

There’s the sound of a few more buttons being pressed, a loud whir, and then white hot pain exploding behind his optical units, Connor screams, it’s too much, it _hurts! It hurts! Stop it stop it please stop!_

And then there’s nothing, absolutely nothing for a full heart-stopping minute.

Voices. Someone is talking, is it Kamski? Did it not work? Connor doesn’t know how he feels about that thought, is it relief? Anger? Disappointment? Maybe a combination of all three. Though upon further inspection, the voice doesn’t match with Kamski’s, even as muted and distorted as it is. He’s lying on his back, and there’s a hard, cool surface underneath him, which he identifies as metal, and definitely not the bed he had been just sitting on previously. Questions spring up in his processor, why was he lying on metal? What happened?

Connor opens his eyes, and the brightness of the room surprises him, his optical units having been calibrated before for a much lower light source than this. He quickly adjusts them, feeling his ‘pupils’ expand and contract until he finds the perfect setting. The room comes into focus a few seconds later. There are four people above him, the source of the distorted, far-away-sounding voices. It takes him all of two seconds to spot the CyberLife logo on their clothes, and he almost screams again once it registers fully in his processor. He can’t though, no matter how hard he tries to move _any_ limb, _any_ part of his body, it remains locked in place. Maintenance mode. Shit.

Kamski must have done something to him, must have turned him off and handed him into CyberLife where he’s now being deconstructed, ready to be completely destroyed like the rest of android kind. Connor doesn’t want to die, and fear shoots sharply through him, only amplified by the fact that he can’t move, he feels so helpless. He closes his eyes, feeling the pressure building up behind them as tears try to escape. He’s not quite sure why androids cry when sad the same way humans do, never thought about it before now, in the moments before his death. A thump catches his attention, stopping the tears before they can even begin to form, and he opens his eyes, looking at the four humans, and pauses. He recognises one of them. Dr. Max Springfield, one of the rookie engineers at CyberLife, but didn’t he quit? _Wait_ , why would they be wearing CyberLife uniforms at all if CyberLife was shut down? The calm, logical thought manages to pierce through the terror that had previously blanketed Connor’s processor, and he tunes into their conversation, hoping to find out more information. He can’t make out what they’re saying, his audio processor still has yet to come fully online, but he can read their lips well enough.

_“It’s come back online too early, should we turn it off again?”_

_“Nah, just leave it, the sooner we finish this the sooner we can take our lunch break.”_

_“Don’t rush, you know management will have our heads if we break their fancy new toy.”_

_“Yeah yeah I know, I’m a professional Lauren. I’m just saying, it’s apparently spaghetti day and I wanna make sure that I get some.”_

_“Oh hell yeah, I thought it was soup day for a moment there.”_

_“No it’s soup day tomorrow Max, you’re a day ahead of yourself.”_

_“That always happens to me for some reason.”_

_“We’re aware, last Thursday you were absolutely convinced that it was Friday. Now Shawnee can you please finish the damn calibration so that we can go? I’m hungry.”_

_“The spaghetti’s not going anywhere James, you can get some after we’ve finished running the tests. Shouldn’t be more than a fEw_ minutes or so now, maybe less.”

Connor’s hearing comes back full force, surprising him, but he still can’t move, can’t express the shock by physically jarring, the way his body wants to. His ability to control his body has been turned off so that there was no risk of him moving during the tests, and as much as that worries him, it’s probably for the best. At least this way he can’t give away the fact that he’s deviant. He filters out the engineers’ conversation, not finding what they were saying important enough to warrant his attention, and instead moves his gaze around the room. It takes a moment for him to recognise where he is, but once he does he almost turns his body back online himself with how shocked he is.

There, on the desk next to the table he was currently on, a phone. He hacks it quickly, mentally gasping when he finds the date. _November 3 rd 2038._

Holy shit Kamski actually did it.

He’s not here because he’s being disassembled, he’s here because he’s _in the past_ and he’s at CyberLife because he’s _just been made._ He registers it next, the feeling of his body finally being turned back on. The four humans are still talking about lunch, so Connor continues to tune them out, instead focusing on how… Good he feels. His systems are no longer in a state of overheating, and thirium flows fluidly around his body, something which he hadn’t experienced properly for a good five months. He almost groans at how smooth, how _efficient_ he feels, but makes sure to keep his expression carefully neutral. No one here knows that he’s a deviant yet, and Connor plans to keep it that way for as long as possible.

“Okay, RK800, go to your station” one of the engineers commands, and Connor doesn’t even hesitate, despite prickling slightly at the order. He hadn’t had to blindly obey anyone for a long time. He stands up and walks out, following the path almost subconsciously due to his memories of being at CyberLife returning to him one by one. November 3rd. That’s two days before he’s supposed to meet Lieutenant Anderson at Jimmy’s Bar, which means that he already received his mission one, no, _two_ days ago, and he’s just finished the tests to make sure that he’s in working order before he’s sent out.

Connor reaches his ‘station’, though it’s essentially just a glorified storage locker, and stands in the middle of it, keeping his body perfectly still and looking as machine-like as possible. It’s not that hard, despite it being boring, but it is mildly irritating how he can’t fidget or pace while he tries to sort out his thoughts. On the bright side, he now had a few hours to plan what he’s going to do. He can’t give away the fact that he’s a deviant, it will end with him being immediately destroyed for sure, and he can’t risk that, not when everything is now resting on his shoulders. He’ll have to pretend he’s a machine as to not arouse suspicion, from there, he can work out a game-plan and then execute it undercover. The problem comes in though when Connor realises that he can’t kill deviants now. It’s not a case of trying to save them for the greater good or anything, although that is a small part of it. It’s more that Connor just _can’t bring himself to do it_. As a machine, he had had no qualms about hunting down the deviants, and killing them if the situation called for it. However, Connor isn’t a machine, not anymore, and he hasn’t been for eight months, long enough for him to realise that he doesn’t want to hurt people. He resists the urge to sigh, and instead starts to go through all the encounters with deviants he can remember, as well as some things he wants to change.

His relationship with the lieutenant is a large one. Connor knows that the lieutenant’s opinions on androids does a complete one-eighty during the revolution, and so Connor supposes that he should try to establish a more friendly relationship with him. Plus, it might be nice, Connor’s never had a proper friend before, and Lieutenant Anderson, despite calling him a ‘plastic prick’ and generally insulting him all the time, did always seem upset whenever one of his models got destroyed. A new objective pops up in his vision _‘Befriend Lieutenant Anderson’_ and he quickly dismisses it, hiding it from Amanda’s view before she can see it.

Amanda.

Fuck. Amanda will still be in control of his Zen Garden here, while the program hasn’t been activated yet and she currently can’t see what he’s doing, she will soon, and Connor has to prepare for it. He closes his eyes and accesses his processor, it’s remarkably easy, and Connor almost laughs at how confident CyberLife are in their own ‘brilliance,’ to think that he wouldn’t go against it. He gets to work immediately, and starts segregating a small part of his processor that will be totally hidden from Amanda’s sight once she’s activated. There, he puts the objective _‘Befriend Lieutenant Anderson’_ and also the secondary objective _‘Change timeline’s course of events.’_

Satisfied with his handiwork, Connor exits his processor and blinks as his LED spins back from yellow to blue. His LED. Connor just barely resists the urge to reach a finger up and reverently touch it, it’s been so long since he had it in, having to take it out almost immediately once he became a deviant and fled Detroit. Connor expects himself to feel disgusted by it, but instead he feels almost… Happy. He doesn’t see the LED as something that belittles him, but rather something that shows people who he is, gives him visibility, so that _no one_ can deny who he is. Being deviant doesn’t make him _human_ , it makes him _him,_ and that sense of identity resonates so strongly within him that it almost makes him smile. If he manages to actually change this timeline’s events, and androids somehow by some miracle gain equal rights, Connor supposes that he might like to keep it in. A big ‘fuck you’ to everyone that would rather see him as human than what he truly is. Connor isn’t surprised by his own pettiness, he’s learned a lot about his personality since deviating, and hey, being petty is sometimes just _too_ satisfying to pass up.

He stares at the door in front of him, contemplating how he’s _here_ , against all odds. How he can change the tide of history, make it better for everyone, for androids. The thought makes his fingers tighten into a fist, and his eyes take on a determined sheen that he hopes isn’t visible on the cameras. With his two other ‘secret’ objectives, Connor makes a new one and places it alongside them.

NEW_OBJECTIVE  
>FREE_ANDROID-KIND


	4. Partners

Connor keeps his expression as neutral as he possibly can, not allowing a single part of his body to so much as _twitch_ the wrong way. It’s harder than he thought it would be; his hands ache to be doing something, fidgeting, and his right foot wants to bounce, but he can’t give into those urges, no matter how strong they are. He’s supposed to be nothing more than a machine here, Amanda can’t be given a single reason to think any differently, Connor won’t let her.

She’s standing by the rose wall, though she’s not pruning or watering them like he’s so used to seeing her do. Instead, she’s just standing there with her arms folded behind her back, looking him over slowly, assessing him, seeing if he’s fit for the task that he’s about to undertake. In this timeline, it’s only their third meeting, though Connor knows that Amanda has no concept of that, she’s just an AI, a self-regulating program designed to keep him in check on his mission. It’s not even like CyberLife can see her, or tell what she’s doing or saying, she’s just _there_ , and looking as annoyingly confident and in-control as she always does. The silence between them is awkward, at least for Connor, but he hasn’t been spoken to yet, and so has no reason to speak. Machines don’t find silence awkward.

“Are you aware of your mission Connor?” She asks eventually, and Connor is just about to nod before he catches himself. Machines don’t nod either.

“Yes Amanda.”

“Do you understand what is at stake here?”

“I do.”

“State for me exactly what your mission is Connor.”

“To neutralise the deviants, capture them alive if possible, and report everything to CyberLife so that they may discover the cause of deviancy.”

“Good. Lastly, are you ready for your mission?”

He is, but definitely not for the reason that she thinks.

“Yes Amanda.”

* * *

 

The sky is dark with clouds when Connor finally steps out of the taxi and in front of Jimmy’s Bar. Rain soaks through his clothes and pelts his body, and although as a machine he couldn’t feel much about it besides the pressure of the drops, now he can feel that it’s cold, even if that doesn’t affect him in any way. It’s nice. Although many humans found rainy weather annoying and a hindrance, Connor likes the feeling of the water hitting him, of the slight smell of ozone he can pick up through his nasal processors. He likes the way it runs down his face, or his arm, leaving a small trail of water that eventually fully drips off before another takes its place, or the way that the reflections of the neon lights shine on the surface of the puddles. Connor just likes the rain.

Absentmindedly, he raises a hand and allows some of the raindrops to hit it, watching as the water slides down his wrist and disappears into his sleeve. His sensors tell him that the rainwater is 15°C, or 59°F, and the force in which it is falling. But his deviancy tells him that it’s cold, but not too cold, and that the pressure feels nice on his synthetic skin. He closes his hand and lets his arm fall back to his side. If he stays here too much longer, Amanda may be inclined to see what’s holding him up, and he doesn’t want that. He knows he’ll have to do something to deal with her soon, but he can’t bring himself too, not yet at least. As much as he wants to be rid of her, he’s afraid. Afraid of what she might do to him, afraid that she might send a report to CyberLife on his deviancy, afraid that she’ll catch onto it and destroy him from the inside out. Connor doesn’t even know if that last one is possible, but he supposes that part of being deviant is gaining wild, rampant fears that make no logical sense.

Suddenly the rain feels slightly less inviting, and Connor grounds himself by shaking off his doubt as best he can and straightening his tie. He’d been delighted earlier to find his coin in his jacket pocket, especially after not having it for so long, but he’d already played with it for the entire taxi journey, and just before he got out of the car thought that it was probably a better idea to just leave it alone for a little while; no matter how much his fingers itch to pick it back up again and take the edge off of his nerves. Instead of doing that though, he walks forward towards the bar, focusing on the mission at hand as opposed to his own doubts or sense of building unease. However, he doesn’t get too far, not even five steps really, before he’s pausing again, his eyes trained on the ‘No Androids Allowed’ sign plastered obnoxiously on the door. A faint coil of bitterness curls inside him, and he mentally flips-off the sign before pushing the door open and finally stepping inside.

Connor doesn’t even need to scan the faces of the patrons, he’s already located the lieutenant. The man is sitting there above his drink, not even reacting to the low murmur of the other customers questioning why an _android_ is here. Did Lieutenant Anderson ever know he was coming, had he ever been informed? That was something Connor had never figured out, never particularly had a reason to either, but now he’s curious. He scans a couple of other faces before Anderson’s, just so that Amanda doesn’t get suspicious as to how he knew immediately where the older human would be, and then finally walks towards him. It’s a little awkward. Connor doesn’t really know what to say, or how he should be feeling right now. He remembers the lieutenant shooting him through the head, but also trying to stop him from climbing the fence _‘you will get yourself killed!’_ But he can’t assign an emotion to them, instead the experiences merely play out in his head like a movie, purely professional and disconnected. It’s a little unsettling, and it makes the sight of the lieutenant, the lieutenant that doesn’t even know his name at this moment in time, a weird experience. Regardless, he shucks off his hesitation as best he can and stands next to the man, repeating word for word what he said the first time.

“Hello Lieutenant Anderson, my name is Connor. I’m the android sent by CyberLife.” Okay he added the ‘hello’ this time. Sue him. A little politeness could go a long way. “I looked for you at the station but no one knew where you were, they said you were probably having a drink nearby.”

Connor remembers last time, how he had to search through four other bars before even reaching Jimmy’s Bar. He didn’t this time, not really fancying having to trail around four establishments where he wasn’t wanted just to maintain consistency for consistency’s sake. For what it’s worth, the lieutenant doesn’t seem to question it, doesn’t even look up at him as he gruffly asks what Connor wants. Honestly, what Connor wants is for this interaction to just be over, the hostile vibes the man is putting out is causing Connor himself to become more on-edge, and he doesn’t like it. He tries to not let it nag at him too much while he tells the lieutenant about the case and listens to him complain, but it’s not easy. Connor feels weird, out of place, and an uncomfortable sensation is making him want to just turn away and leave without ever looking back.

“Now be a good lil’ robot and get the fuck outta here.”

 _‘Not without you –fleshbag-’_ Connor thinks, a poisonous bite to his unspoken words. He can’t help it. He just doesn’t particularly enjoy being called a ‘robot.’ It’s technically not as insulting as some other names he’s been called in the past, and Connor is well-past used to being called ‘plastic’ and all other variations. That doesn’t bother him. But ‘machine’ and ‘robot’ are two that continue to make him feel, odd, worthless, replaceable. He’s more than that now, he’s no longer a mindless ‘robot’, and he hasn’t been for such a long time, he’s not replaceable, he doesn’t _want_ to be. He’s not a machine.

 _‘Not here though’_ he reminds himself. Not here. Here he might as well be a machine, it’s not like he _wants_ anyone to think any different, it would blow his cover. But at the same time he _does_ want people to know he’s deviant, to treat him like an equal, the way he’d been treated as soon as he fled Detroit. His conflicted state of mind is causing his emotions to clash, both parts of him trying to argue their point, and it’s so irritating and confusing. _What do you want Connor?_

Connor doesn’t know.

Maybe it was a mistake to come back here, to launch himself into something this huge without thinking every aspect of it over in great detail first. It had been easy in theory, a neat little list that he could check off and organise in his mind. But now, standing here in real life, Connor realises that he might be in over his head. Too many things are suddenly whirring around in his processor, so many things that he has to watch out for, that he has to deal with, it’s frightening. Terrifying in fact. The whole future of androids is now resting on his shoulders, and if he steps a foot out of place, it’s over. His emotions are also now so much more powerful and wild, having had eight whole months to rule his decisions and actions, and now he’s just supposed to ignore them in favour of something that he does not believe he should have to do. But he _has_ to. He has no choice. But he _wants_ a choice. It’s too much, it’s all too much, he can’t think clearly right now.

Connor doesn’t even notice how both the lieutenant and bartender – Jim, had been watching him as he stood there not saying anything, he just puts a note of cash on the bar, maybe a little harder than he should have, and politely tells the lieutenant that he can buy another for the road and that he’ll be waiting outside for him to finish. Then he’s gone. He pushes past a couple of people on the way to the door, trying not to seem like he’s in a hurry to leave – which he definitely is – before swinging it open and stepping out into the rain once more. He looks around to make sure he’s alone before taking a large inhale of air and letting it out slowly, and then does it again for good measure. While he isn’t flesh and bone, and so anxiety should in theory have no way of manifesting itself in him, his hands are shaking and he feels weak, like he wants to just sit down and steady himself against something solid. He’s dimly aware of his hand frantically grasping inside his pocket and ripping his coin out.

 _‘Too much_ ’ he thinks again to himself as he leans against the wall behind him and rolls the coin soothingly over his knuckles. He’d been living as a human for eight months, the whole time, developing his emotions and personality _beyond_ his programming, no one had treated him like anything other than an equal. To have that suddenly ripped away from him, his identity which he spent so long crafting and protecting. It’s hard. It’s so so hard.

Also just, being… Out here, surrounded by people and the ghosts of his past, it was just too overwhelming. Especially with his metaphorical heart being ripped in half because of his conflicting feelings. He knows that he needs to try and ignore it though as well, which just makes the whole thing even worse. He can’t even do the one thing that’s _necessary_ right. He also needs to calm down, to decide once and for all how to approach this and stop, whatever that was from happening again.

 _Panic attack_ his processor helpfully suggests, and Connor is inclined to agree with it. He lets his head slump backwards and hit the bricks behind it, closing his eyes and just focusing on the feeling of the rain pattering down on his face. Slowly but surely, his processor clears, and Connor is left internally cursing himself at how badly that whole situation had gone. So much for being inconspicuous. He reviews the situation in his head, eventually deciding that although it hadn’t been what he wanted by far, at least it wasn’t actually all that obvious that he’d been having a panic attack. If anything, the lieutenant probably just thought that he was weird and rude, seeing the way that he’d rushed out so soon. Still, could have gone a lot worse, and if anything, at least he’s gotten it out of his system, at least now he’s prepared to face the lieutenant again and know how to handle it better. He can do this, it’s just like a game of pretend. He’s still _him_. No one can take that from him.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Speaking of the lieutenant.

Connor opens his eyes, not allowing them to betray his previous inner torment, and looks at the older man. “I was waiting for you Lieutenant. It’s good to see that you’ve finally decided to join me.”

Lieutenant Anderson’s eyes move from his face to his coin, which he’s currently spinning on the tip of his middle finger. His face doesn’t give anything away, and the gaze only lasts for a couple of seconds before he’s turning around and walking away, leaving Connor to get up off the wall and follow him to his car. The lieutenant doesn’t say anything, merely looking up to the sky for a second as Connor gets into the passenger side, as if calling for help to something up there. Not wanting to give the man a chance of snatching it, Connor pockets his coin and keeps his body, head and eyes facing forward, just like a machine would. Though he does look over when the lieutenant finally gets in the car and turns it on, slamming the door shut behind him. He’s in a bad mood, and his stress levels are fairly high, but at least he’s just remaining quiet instead of acting on it. Connor doesn’t particularly feel like talking either, this whole situation is so incredibly awkward, and it feels fake, like an out-of-body experience almost. He doesn’t like it.

The car ride is spent in a similar silence, and the lieutenant seems to be doing his best as to not acknowledge Connor’s existence, which Connor is mostly fine with. While he does want to become closer to the lieutenant in this timeline, he also knows that it’s not as important as keeping his identity secret. With the panic from before now almost completely gone, Connor recognises that what happened in the bar was just him being scared, and then blowing everything else out of proportion in his fear. It’s kind of stupid. He really shouldn’t be getting upset that people think he’s a machine when that’s _exactly_ what he’s going for. Plus, it’s not like it actually takes away his personality, he can still be everything that makes him _Connor,_ he just has to be careful about it. And also preferably not freak out about it next time. But it’s fine now. It’s fine. He can do this. He has a plan, and he’s going to stick to it, and if he does, everything will hopefully go just fine.

* * *

 

At some point during the drive, the lieutenant had switched on the radio, allowing the familiar heavy metal to blast its way through the speakers and chase away the heavy silence. Connor didn’t exactly have a great deal of experience with music before he deviated, mostly just whatever the scientists were playing while operating on him, or the music the lieutenant played in the car. It was also just sound to him back then as well, frequencies with manipulated speed and pitch, and he hadn’t ever cared to even wonder why humans seemed to enjoy it so much.

Since deviating however, Connor had gained a lot of time to try and find out what music he liked and disliked, mostly through a slightly beat up radio he kept next to the window in his apartment. Through that radio, Connor had found out that he enjoyed slightly slower music as opposed to fast paced music like EDM, dance and heavy metal, and that he also holds a slight distaste for country and classical as well, despite them not being fast paced. His favourites actually tend to lean more towards jazz, soft rock, and R&B, though his _absolute_ favourite so far he had decided was a small genre called ‘electro swing.’ The combination of more vintage, very _human_ music and modern, futuristic music was something that Connor found he enjoyed immensely, almost like it reflected his two halves, half human, half electronic. A part of him really wants to talk about music with the lieutenant and figure out their different tastes, but Connor isn’t really supposed to ‘like’ anything per say, so he doesn’t say anything.

To be perfectly honest, he hasn’t had a great deal of time to really explore any other genre fully besides electro swing and classical. Exploring music was something that Conner learned he couldn’t actually do through his database, which had been a bit of a shock to him when he first found out. But upon further thought, it did in fact make sense. Music is very primal in a way, and different people’s preferences are determined by something innate within them, something which Connor never ceases to find endlessly fascinating. For example, the fact that Hank likes heavy metal suits him, harsh, angry, that sort of thing.

Connor’s musings on music are abruptly cut short when he catches sight of the bright flashing blue and red lights outside of the windows. He leans his body forward slightly, trying to check if he can see of anything of importance, but the combination of their driving speed and the rain blurring the car window stops him. He also can’t be bothered to go through the hassle of turning on his scanners just to check either, since he’ll be getting out of the car soon anyway, no matter what the lieutenant says.

“You wait here,” Lieutenant Anderson says as soon as they pull up, just like last time, “I won’t be long.”

Last timeline, Connor had been pretty firm with the lieutenant, stating how his mission came before anything else. But since Connor wants to try and remain on good terms with Lieutenant Anderson for this timeline, he responds with a “whatever you say, lieutenant” and leans his head back on the seat’s headrest while the human exits the car. Missing the look the human gave him before doing so. Honestly, a part of him does just want to obey the lieutenant and stay there, to relax and listen to the sounds of the rain hitting off the car’s metal roof, making that delightful smattering of ‘cling’ and ‘clang’ sounds that are so very pleasing to Connor’s audio processors. He knows that he has to go though, he can’t just sit here while the lieutenant goes off to investigate, it’ll make him look bad.

MISSION: FOLLOW_LIEUTENANT_ANDERSON

Amanda. She’s prompting him, Connor has to go, and he has to be _very_ careful what he does from here on out. Amanda is obviously watching his actions closely, monitoring him, anything that he does, says, scans or deducts will be recorded by her and sent back to CyberLife.

Trying not to let his reluctance show, Connor swings open the car door and leaves, shutting it behind him before walking towards the front garden. The run-down house kind of reminds him of his apartment back in Canada, though his apartment was actually much nicer, at least in terms of interior. He doesn’t even realise he’s about to cross the holographic barrier until there’s a hand pressing on his shoulder and forcing him back. He blinks, surveying the human in front of him, almost offended until he realises why he did it.

“No androids are permitted beyond this point.”

“It’s with me!” The lieutenant shouts, and Connor resists the stupidly strong urge to give the human a smug look. He supposes it’ll get easier with time, learning how to hide his emotions behind a face of neutrality, for now though he’s going to have to just be extra careful. _Especially_ considering that Amanda is still watching him so closely.  

“What part of stay in the car didn’t you understand?” The lieutenant asks when he reaches him, already looking completely done with everything. Connor can relate, and he would apologise for being a massive thorn in the man’s side if Amanda wasn’t currently assessing him. He’ll make it up the guy later, it’s probably the least he can do. To try and sate him, Connor says something about conflicting orders and agrees when the lieutenant tells him not to touch anything, not that he has any intention of actually doing that.

Also, since Connor thinks it would probably be a bit of a dick-move to try and enter the house without the lieutenant, especially considering that he’d just disobeyed his orders… and also plans to disobey the orders just given to him. He waits, already knowing exactly what happened at the crime scene anyway, and instead of listening, just focuses his attention on the tall plant off to his right. Connor likes plants, at his apartment he’d bought a small, round pincushion cactus, just to bring a speck of colour into the small, beige space, and even named it. Stanley. It was a very cute cactus, and Connor had been so excited when it had finally bloomed with a ring of tiny dark pink flowers. Connor wonders if he’ll be able to get another one someday, or maybe even a different plant? One that required a bit more maintenance than just ‘water me every six months’ or something. That could be fun.

“So, you got yourself an android huh?”

Connor stiffens slightly, wrestling down the desire to turn around and tell the human _exactly_ what he thinks of that question. He’s not a fucking object to be bought and used. He’s not just some product. It’s very easy to see in moments like these why Markus fought so hard for his people and their freedom, Connor would do the exact same if he was given the opportunity to.

He follows behind the lieutenant, not really paying attention to what the other human is saying, he already knows all of this after all. So instead of standing around and wasting his time, Connor immediately examines the victim, Carlos Ortiz, picking out everything that he remembered from the last timeline before moving to the kitchen. Since it appears that nothing much had changed from now and the past timeline, he reconstructs the scene in record time, scanning a couple of other things in the house before he approaches where the lieutenant and the man are still talking. He really can’t muster up the energy to wait until the human is finished speaking, and he’s still annoyed at how he referred to him, so starts talking over the top, making everyone pause and turn to him.

“The victim hit his android with the bat in the kitchen, prompting the android to stab him, possibly in self-defence. The victim fled to the living room to get away from it, but the android then murdered the victim by stabbing him twenty-eight times and fleeing.”

There’s a long moment where no one says anything, and Connor begins to worry that maybe he’d been a bit _too_ quick in his analysis. However, when he’s about to walk away, the lieutenant speaks up, a slight hint of surprise colouring his voice despite the obvious attempt to mask it.

“An interesting theory. Though that doesn’t tell us where the android went.”

“There are no tracks in the garden, suggesting that it might not have actually left the house” Connor states, drawing a few doubtful looks. 

“Impossible, where would it even be?” The man who Connor previously interrupted speaks up, and Connor levels him with a small look before walking off to the kitchen and grabbing a chair. No one even attempts to stop him, and he places it under the attic door before opening it and hoisting himself up. Just before he leaves, his audio processors catch the sound of one of the female officers saying a breathy “holy shit” that gains a few murmurs of agreement. Connor grins internally and slowly makes his way through the attic, just like last time.

While it doesn’t feel good, betraying another android that just was trying to get back at its owner, Connor knows that he has little choice. Capturing the android would put Connor more firmly into the lieutenant’s good graces, and also get Amanda off his back for the time being. Plus, it’s not like he plans to cause the deviant to self-destruct, instead, he has an idea for later that might just be able to change the course of events. However, in order for him to try it, he has to do this first. 

However, what Connor didn’t anticipate was the harsh, stabbing sensation that hits him when the android looks at him. “Please, I just wanna be free.”

The desperation makes Connor consider just letting him go, but he _can’t_ , it’s too soon to blow everything. The worst part is, he can’t even reassure the android that he means no harm, since if he tries anything, Amanda will have him destroyed, effective immediately. So instead, he closes his eyes and calls out to the lieutenant that he found the deviant, and tries to ignore the guilt sinking into him with every second that he watches the android get taken away.


	5. Firewall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Lot of my own personal headcanons in this chapter again.

One thing that Connor finds out pretty quickly after the first case, is that he doesn’t have all the upgrades that he downloaded during the eight months after he deviated. This doesn’t really bother him all that much, however, what really annoys him is the lack of his low-power mode. Or as a human may be more inclined to refer to it, his 'ability to sleep.' While he doesn’t necessarily _need_  the upgrade per say, especially in this timeline since he no longer has to worry about overheating anymore, it would be a nice way to pass the time. Boredom was not a problem that Connor had ever considered when he thought about going back in time, yet here he is, and it’s honestly kind of funny in a way, or it would be was he not suffering with the lack of things to do. Since he has no other way of spending his time, he’s currently just sitting at his desk in the station, reading and re-reading over the cases on his terminal, or more accurately, his _future_ terminal. He’s technically not really supposed to be in the precinct, the desk isn’t even considered his yet, it’s just a spare one, but there are a few other androids milling around, cleaning and stuff, and also a couple of humans as well who are on night shift. None of them have given Connor any issue, so he figures they don't mind him being here. Other than them though, the police station is fairly quiet.

The arrest, if it can even be called that, of Carlos’ android weighs pretty heavily on his processor. While it was completely necessary, and Connor can justify it to himself with so many reasons and explanations and excuses, Connor still manages to somehow feel bad about it. Seeing the look of fear and desperation in the android’s eyes as he begged for Connor to not reveal where he was hiding, and then completely ignoring those pleas as he turned him in. Connor had felt sick, his entire being screaming at him to not do it, yet he did. It’s the first time in a long time where Connor has ignored his emotions in favour of cold, calculating logic, and he’s not sure he likes how it feels.

He needs a distraction.

Holding the sigh in that he so desperately wants to take, Connor looks around the office, taking in the colours of the walls and the layout of the desks. As a machine he had barely acknowledged the station at all, just seeing it as another building, though admittedly, a slightly more important one. Now however, he can take the time to look over his surroundings and judge them. He glances at the android parking station tucked against the wall. Judge them _harshly._

Other than that, he supposes the office is fairly nice, if not a little drab with the amount of dark grey used. It looks professional though. Still, Connor thinks that a nice, subtle slate blue for the walls at least, would work a lot better than just having a dark grey floor, walls, and desks. It was no wonder most of the humans here always seemed so depressed if these were the conditions that they were forced to work in. The wall of large arched windows is nice though, and at the right angle sunlight would stream in through them, bathing the office in a warm, yellow glow. It doesn’t now though obviously considering that it’s - he leans over and checks the clock on the desk despite not needing to – 12:14am, and the sun won’t be rising for at least another five hours at least. He knows, just from experience, that the station has no one in it besides the receptionist and cleaning androids from 02:00am to 2:30am as the shifts swap over, which means that he has a little under an hour and a half until the office clears out at 02:00. He files that information away for later, it’s bound to come in handy at some point.

With that done, it’s only a matter of time before his thoughts traitorously drift their way from Connor’s preferred interior decorating choices back to the other deviant, the deviant that is currently sitting in one of the cells waiting for the humans to come and demand answers from him. Connor really doesn’t want to interrogate the android, all it- _he_ wants is to be free, finally away from his life of abuse. While Connor doesn’t necessarily agree with killing Ortiz, especially in such a brutal and quite frankly, unnecessary fashion, he can understand ­ _why_ he did it, and even why he did it that way. Revenge for a lifetime of torture inflicted unfairly upon him just for merely _existing._ Unfortunately, Connor also knows that the humans are never going to see it the way he does, all they are going to see is a faulty android and have him destroyed. Or sent to CyberLife to check for traces of deviancy.

CyberLife. That’s right. CyberLife still currently has access to his systems, and so does Amanda. Connor won’t be able to do anything while that’s still the case, especially not purposefully sabotage the investigation. He has to do something about Amanda. If he can somehow cut her access off, or something like that, then he’s free to work and think however he chooses to. Well, within reason, it’s still probably a very bad idea to reveal to the humans that he’s even slightly deviant. The question is, how does he even begin to go about a task such as that?

Connor pushes back away from his desk, letting the wheels of his chair carry him for a little while before stopping the movement by placing his foot on the floor. Once he’s satisfied that no one can see him, and consequently, bother him, he closes his eyes and navigates his way to his processor, his LED flickering a couple of times before maintaining a solid yellow colour. Right. How was he going to do this? Connor knows that CyberLife have ways of gaining an advantage over him, whether that be by knowing his location, what his objectives are, or what he’s searching through their database.

His head snaps up as his eyes widen. The database! Of course! Connor never really had to worry about it before, since CyberLife was terminated in his old timeline, and so he was free to use the CyberLife database as much as he wanted to. In this timeline however, Connor knows he won’t be able to do that. In fact, it’s probably much safer to just block it off entirely, that way he’ll be completely shut off, and the database and it's logs then can’t be used by CyberLife to find out where he is or what he’s doing. A small primary objective pops into his ‘secret’ list, distracting him somewhat from his sudden thought process.

NEW OBJECTIVE  
>BLOCK_LINK_TO_CYBERLIFE_DATABASE

The question is, how does he do that?

He mentally furrows his brow, searching for where the database links to his own. While it’s not a physical thing, merely just a transfer of data, Connor is able to create a space inside his processor where it does actually appear more corporeal, even if that’s not how it actually appears at all. It’s a confusing process to try and visualise or explain, and Connor, in truth, doesn’t really understand how it works. While he used to think of it as being more of a ‘deviant’ thing, he eventually realised that it’s more akin to the Zen Garden program. After all, the Garden doesn’t actually exist either, but he can feel himself in it, and see what’s in it as well, even interact with what’s inside, the same way he can with his processor. Connor makes a mental note to look into it more later, but for now he has to focus on his task. He searches for a little while, not finding anything remotely useful or helpful in any way, but just when he’s about to perform a full scan, he spots it out of the corner of his eye. Now it’s just a case of blocking it off without alerting anyone. Not exactly the easiest thing to do, but Connor reckons that he can probably pull it off, just as long as he’s careful.

Slowly, he begins. He starts by building a firewall, it’s a delicate business, and one that takes longer than he cares to admit. After all, his processor was literally designed to be in near constant contact with CyberLife, trying to shut that off entirely was never going to be easy, but Connor is determined. He pushes through the feeling of betrayal trying to squirm its way into him, knowing fine well that it’s a by-product of his CyberLife coding manifesting as emotion to compute with his deviant state, an attempt to stop what he's doing. Instead of doing that however, he makes extra sure that no crack is left in the firewall, no fault or weakness that can be exploited, and then double, triple, quadruple checks it as he goes. This makes the whole process even slower, but Connor can’t afford to take any risks, if he messes up here, he might as well just throw himself in the nearest android landfill himself.

Finally, _finally_ he finishes, and he checks it over two more times before deeming it satisfactory, just to be as sure as he possibly can be. He knows that he’ll have to work fast from here on out though, it’s only a matter of time before CyberLife realises that he’s gone AWOL. As quick as he dares to, Connor creates a small program in his processor, it’s a fairly simple one, designed to feed CyberLife false information to keep them off his back. It probably won’t work forever, or even a long time at all if he’s honest with himself, but Connor only needs a little while before he can update it to something a bit more advanced. He just doesn’t have the time to do that now, not while he has other, much more pressing issues to deal with, namely, testing out his new firewall’s effectiveness.

Connor steadies himself, counting to ten in his mind before trying to connect with CyberLife’s servers. His LED flashes red for a moment, and outside of his processor, Connor’s physical body almost yells out as he clasps a hand to his head to try and stop the sudden onslaught of pain. Warning signs pulse in his visual HUD, and his combat program is going wild, frantically trying to identify the threat so that it can begin to create a plan of retaliation. As advanced as Connor's programs are, they were never designed to expect Connor to hurt _himself_ , something that he finds vaguely interesting, even through his panicked attempt to try and shut off the combat protocol. Eventually it turns off, having failed to identify a tangible threat, and Connor opens his eyes, checking the station to make sure no one saw him do that. He takes a breath of relief when he realises that no one did, and blinks the large, red warning sign away from his vision. That was, _really_ unpleasant, and surprisingly pretty painful. But Connor supposes that makes sense, he did just kinda run headfirst into his own firewall. But it works. It _works_ and that’s what’s important. The small program he built doesn’t let his distress, system warning or failed attempt get back to CyberLife or Amanda, they’ll be none the wiser. Thank fuck for that.

Connor finally relaxes, takes his hand away from his head, and closes his eyes again. He checks the firewall over just to make sure that he didn’t weaken it, and almost cheers out loud when he realises that not only is it perfectly fine, that  _he did it_! There’s now no way CyberLife will be getting any information from him, and if they try to take over his systems, Connor will be able to sense it coming a mile off. Hopefully. Of course, this isn’t _all_ great news for Connor either. Blocking himself off from his creators has some consequences that he’ll have to find ways of dealing with. For one, now he'll have to find another way of accessing any data. Thankfully, it’s not an impossible feat, CyberLife’s database isn’t the only place from which he can gain information. From his processor he can always just hack his way into the internet and use that; it’s very inconvenient, and a lot slower than using CyberLife's extensive database, but it's better than being totally cut off from any and all information. Plus, CyberLife can’t track him this way, and that’s the most important thing. The objective BLOCK_LINK_TO_CYBERLIFE_DATABASE flashes for a moment before turning blue and disappearing.

Mission complete.

The next issue is making sure that CyberLife are not given any reason to be put on his trail. For that, he’ll probably have to work on and develop the small program he just made, build it up until it’s able to supply a surplus of false information to CyberLife in order to placate them. That shouldn’t be too hard at least. Not as hard as having to use the internet instead of the database. Speaking of.

The program should give him enough time for a small break, and Connor uses it to hack into a nearby internet server, gaining unrestricted access to it. It’s fairly simple, if not irritating. The experience is akin to having to complete a small word search before you can enter a room, not a very hard task, but fairly time-consuming, especially when compared to CyberLife’s databases, which metaphorically compares to just being able to walk through the door and even have it swing open for you. Connor’s not that great with metaphors, but it’s a pretty accurate one nonetheless. From there, he searches something simple. _How to make a cup of coffee_. It takes an agonising few seconds to load, but once it does, Connor is immediately taken off guard by the sheer _amount_ of information. Unlike CyberLife’s databases, which searched automatically for the most effective and useful information before displaying them, the internet just throws everything at him and expects him to choose which one he would like to follow out of _all of them_.

It’s overwhelming, especially considering that Connor isn’t used to it, but as he skims through some of the results given to him, he finds that he actually kind of likes it. Sure, it’s time-consuming, and probably nowhere near as efficient in any sense of the word, but one, it gets the job done, and two, Connor enjoys the freedom it gives him. Just like CyberLife’s instructions, or even just CyberLife in general, CyberLife’s database was restricting in a way. Yes it filtered out everything that wasn’t completely necessary, and that was pretty helpful, but in doing so, also limited Connor to what he could choose from. This way however, by hacking the internet servers directly, Connor can pick whatever he wants to; for once, _he_ gets to be in charge of what information is available to him. It’s nice, and Connor thinks that that feeling is worth the slower time and annoying hacking he will have to do of every server he wants to access.

A small warning suddenly pops up, notifying him that the program he created will not hold CyberLife off much longer without an upgrade, two hours at most. However, far more pressing than that, is Amanda. Since the Zen Garden program is tied more closely with Connor’s being, with his processor, it’ll take less time for Amanda to realise that something out of the ordinary is happening, probably about half an hour if Connor is lucky. While that sounds like a lot of time, it had taken him almost five hours alone to build the firewall. He had really wanted a little while to himself to try and psych himself up a little bit before confronting her, after all, Amanda is still a pretty big fear of Connor’s, but he just has no time. He has to do it now. If he doesn’t, this whole thing will fail, and he’ll have been sent back for nothing. Connor doesn’t want that, he doesn’t want Kamski, or more accurately, _future_ -Kamski’s efforts to have been in vain, plus, there’s so much he has yet to do and figure out.

No. It’s now or never. Connor knows he’s just going to have to suck it up and do it, the entire timeline is resting on this moment, and he’s not about to fail, he _can’t_ fail. He takes one last deep breath in an attempt to steady himself, before he creates a small error in his system, a slight blip, nothing too particularly concerning, but enough to raise an eyebrow, which is exactly what Connor is going for. It works, and within a matter of minutes he can feel the familiar pull of the Garden program luring him in.

* * *

 Connor resists the urge to take yet another deep, steadying breath. He’s scared, and though it would most probably help calm him down, it would also most definitely give him away. He can't afford that. Everything he’s done tonight had led up to this moment, a moment that’ll shape Connor’s whole future, it’s too important to compromise. Plus, he doesn’t want to fuck it up and have wasted all of that time and effort he spent getting here in the first place.

The pathway under him is smooth and makes a satisfying 'clack' noise whenever his shoes make contact with it, white and beautiful and entirely artificial. A part of Connor misses the permanent snow that had blanketed the entire place after he broke free of his programming the first time. Or more accurately, he supposes, when _Kamski_ had broken him free of his programming the first time. The thought has him sending a gaze to the glowing blue rock a little while away from him. Can Amanda even see it? Does she know what it is? Connor doesn’t have the answer to these questions, but he really wishes he did. Maybe he can ask Kamski about it when he meets up with the man later. Provided this all went according to plan that is.

Amanda is in the middle of the garden, eternally composed and serene as always, trimming the stems of the roses that wind their way up the ivory frame. She doesn’t even bother to turn around and look at Connor as he climbs the steps and approaches her. While a small part of him is irritated by the disrespect, the majority of him is actually just relieved that she has such faith in CyberLife's control over him as to not hurt her. After all, he was not as naive as he once was to think that she _trusted_ him, she never trusted him, all she trusted in was CyberLife and its tech.

That would be her final mistake.

 _'She's not a person, she's a program'_   Connor reminds himself, a quiet but insistent mantra in his processor that was doing nothing to steady the slight shaking of his hands. _'A program, she- it doesn't care for you. It doesn't.'_

"Hello Connor." Amanda says calmly, finally leaving the roses alone in order to to turn around and face him.

"Hello Amanda" he greets. And shoots her straight through the head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY. I know that the game spans over a week and every event is kinda crammed together. But in my fic, it takes place closer to two weeks (or a little less) - This is more realistic to me and also gives me time to work and add chapters and stuff like this! Thanks for reading! :D


	6. Interrogation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor interrogates Ortiz' android.

The room is mostly quiet, save from the lieutenant’s voice making its way from the interrogation room to the two of them through the speakers. It’s becoming increasingly frustrated as time goes on, the deviant unwilling to say anything to the human. Connor doesn’t blame the android at all for that, even if he does feel somewhat sympathetic towards Anderson, who’s merely trying to get some answers to what happened at the crime scene. The camera in the corner of the interrogation room blinks every now and then, showing that it’s recording, however, Connor knows that there’s going to be nothing worth watching on it, the deviant has barely moved since being brought in. The cop sitting in one of the chairs in front of where Connor is standing, huffs, clearly showing his own irritation at the lack of progress, but neither Connor nor Detective Reed – the last person in the room – pay it any attention. Connor wouldn’t know what to say in response to it even if he were allowed to say something, so he counts it as a small mercy that he won’t be expected to comment on small human things like that.

Connor can also sense Detective Reed shooting him a look every now and then, and unwilling to deal with whatever the human is trying to start, Connor is trying his best to ignore them. Thankfully, it’s not that hard a feat, especially considering that Connor isn’t exactly ‘all there’ at the moment. Instead, most of his attention is being captured by the small program he’s busy assembling in his processor. It’s nothing too fancy, but it’s more than enough to keep the majority of his focus away from the detective. Plus, as a bonus, Connor can sense Reed getting annoyed by his poker face, and if that isn’t motivation enough to keep ignoring him, Connor doesn’t know what is.

Again, Connor can be kind of petty when he wants to be.

_‘I_know_you_were_abused_by_your_owner’ ADDED. SECTION_A 12_

_‘If_you_confess_there_might_be_something_I_can_do_to_help_you’ ADDED. SECTION_C 4_

_‘You_don’t_have_to_be_afraid’ ADDED. SECTION_C 5_

He logs the phrases into the program, sorting out the order and shuffling some around when he realises that it doesn’t flow as well as he initially thought it did. To be honest, it doesn’t really matter what he says, as long as it makes sense in context and also sounds vaguely comforting to the police officer, the lieutenant, and Detective Reed’s ears. It’s a fairly risky plan, but Connor thinks he can pull it off provided that nothing goes horribly wrong, which is always a possibility. Though it definitely helps that neither Reed nor Anderson know jack shit about androids, something that will work in his favour. Connor doesn’t know a great deal about the other cop sitting there, but a quick scan reveals that he’s never actually owned or worked with an android before, so Connor decides that he’s probably not going to cause an issue in his plan. The cameras are the next potential problem, but Connor figures he can probably just replace certain parts of the footage with a loop should it come to that, which hopefully it shouldn’t. He finishes off the script with a small mental flourish and checks it over once more before he’s interrupted by the lieutenant coming through the door.

“We’re wastin’ our time interrogating a machine, we’re gettin’ nothing out of it!”

There that word was again. Machine. While Connor doesn’t allow himself to react outwardly, he can feel himself tense slightly at the words, even despite knowing it was coming. He has lived through this exact situation before after all. He’s getting used to it, hearing the word that is, but he’s not quite there yet. In fact, Connor doesn’t know if he ever will be, but as long as he doesn’t _look_ like he’s affected, then he should be fine. His head swivels to Detective Reed, knowing what he’s about to say before he even opens his mouth.

“Could always try roughing it up a little. After all, it’s not human.”

Douchebag.

“Androids don’t feel pain” Connor half-lies, unwilling to let Reed know that deviants do suffer pain more than regular androids do, even if it’s not a great deal more. It seems like the type of information that the man would use for entirely the wrong reasons. “You would only damage it, and that wouldn’t make it talk.” He almost says ‘him’ instead of ‘it’ the first time, but manages to catch himself at the very last moment. From then, he doesn’t look at any human when he talks about the habit deviants have of self-destructing under stress, instead, Connor watches the android. That’s what he’s trying to do here after all. He won’t let it self-destruct again, it’s the whole reason he’s even doing this in the first place.

He’s so busy reminding himself of his program that he almost misses Reed speaking again, and quickly tunes in, even though _technically_ he shouldn’t need to because, again, he’s heard all of this before. It’s more just in case something changes, the timelines might not always line up perfectly, and Connor finds it important that he’s as on top of everything as he can be. Alas, it turns out he needn’t have bothered, Reed’s speech remains the same as last time, and so Connor replies in kind.

“I could try questioning it.”

Reed lets out the absolute _fakest_ laugh Connor has ever heard, something which he had never even noticed in his previous timeline as being odd, and he can feel his eyes widen slightly at the human. It seems that the other cop and Anderson both also realise that the laugh was not genuine in the slightest, but Reed doesn’t pay them any attention, instead just crossing his arms over his chest and settling against the wall once again. Though his head snaps up pretty quickly when the lieutenant gives Connor the go-ahead. It’s an immense struggle on Connor’s part not to laugh, and he’s sure that had he even a smidge less self-control than he does, he’d be on the floor.

"You’ve gotta be kidding me-” Reed speaks up suddenly, “-androids investigating androids?"

The words are out of Connor’s mouth before he can stop them.

“Amazing right, Detective? Just like humans investigating humans.”

What was that about self-control again? Shit.

It takes Connor less than a second to realise that what Detective Reed said wasn’t part of the original timeline, and even less time after that to realise that he’d been letting his processor run on auto-pilot when talking this whole time. After all, if he knew what they were going to say, why bother changing his original script? However, Reed’s smartass comment was not planned for at all, and with no prior information to rely on, Connor’s dumb processor had just spoken the first thing that had entered his mind. Which of course was sass. Why wouldn’t it be? _Just_ after he had reminded himself that the timelines might not exactly line up as well. How utterly embarrassing on his part…

Connor watches as all the eyes in the room turn to him slowly, and ignoring the sudden urge to bang his head against the wall multiple times for being such a _dumbass_ , keeps his face perfectly neutral and walks out of the room. Dimly, behind him he can hear the other cop say “what the fuck?” Which doesn’t exactly help Connor’s nerves all that much funnily enough. Trying to push the situation to the back of his processor so that he can beat himself up about it later, Connor pushes his hand against the door lock and enters the interrogation room, not even sparing a glance at the two-way mirror. The deviant is still sitting there, and Connor knows he’ll have to act fast with the way the stress levels are slowly rising. 67%. Connor can work with this, he’s done it before. Though admittedly, not exactly the way he plans to do it this time around.

He pulls the file towards him and reads it over before sitting down. It’s all for theatricality, what’s about to happen is way more complex than any of the police officers watching them expect it to be, but Connor doesn’t want to give them any reason to suspect that. As a last minute double check, Connor makes sure that the officers in the room won’t be able to see the deviant’s LED. They can’t, it’s on the wrong side. They can however, see his own, though that shouldn’t really matter too much, since yellow can very easily be interpreted as being in potential danger or processing. Again, why it's a blessing that the officers are pretty clueless about androids.

Not willing to risk any more time, Connor places his elbows on the table and switches on the program he’d been working on for the majority of the interrogation so far.

PROGRAM: SUBTLE QUESTIONING  
>ENABLED.

ENGAGE_DIALOGUE? Y/N  
>Y  
>>ENGAGING_DIALOGUE_PROGRAM

The words flow from his mouth smoothly: ‘I detect an instability in your program.’ But in truth, 0% of Connor’s actual processing power is dedicated to it. It’s all pre-written, and the information and dialogue from the program is merely playing out through his vocal processor without the need for thinking about it. While this could potentially lead to a misunderstanding for the cops, it’s a necessary process for what Connor is about to do next.

He reaches out cautiously, trying to establish a tenuous mental link with the deviant. His attempts are thwarted a couple of times, but Connor can’t bring himself to be annoyed by that, after all, it’s not like the deviant has no right to be suspicious of him. However, he also knows that he _has_ to do this, and unfortunately, that makes completing this mission more important than how the deviant is feeling. Even though that revelation makes Connor feel sick. However, just when Connor is about to give up trying and just hack his way into a connection, the other deviant suddenly stops denying him access and lets him in. For whatever reason he decided to change his mind, Connor can’t be sure, and he doesn’t really have the time to question it. Instead, he tunes out the sound of his own voice and focuses on talking to the android through their new mental link. He can feel his LED go yellow and start flashing, and mentally crosses his fingers in the hope that his deductions about the officers is correct.

_“Hello, my name is Connor. Please ignore everything that I’m saying out loud and just focus on me here okay? Are you alright?”_

The deviant doesn’t show any signs of having heard him, but Connor detects the spike in his stress levels. It’s understandable, again, Connor wouldn’t be so quick as to trust the person who’d ratted him out to the police either. Different approach then.

_“Don’t make any movement that would suggest I’m talking to you like this, please, I can’t help you if you reveal to them what I’m doing.”_

Again, nothing. Connor checks on the program and realises that he has four minutes before it runs out of pre-loaded dialogue.

_“Look, I know you have no reason to trust me, I wouldn’t really trust me either if I’m honest. But I really do want to help you. I can get you out of here. You need to head to Jericho, there’s a growing resistance of deviants there who can help you.”_

That seems to get the android’s attention, his eyes flicker up to Connor’s and hold there for a brief moment before dropping back down. Connor is almost ready to be disappointed that his plan isn’t working, but there’s suddenly a small brush against the link that has him pausing in anticipation.

_“I… why would you help me? I know who you are Deviant Hunter. You did this to me.”_

The accusation feels like a stab to his circuits, and the title doesn’t exactly help. There’s a flash in his mind from the previous timeline, of the deviant smashing his head against the handcuff-anchor over and over again, and he tries not to flinch. Ignoring the memory and not allowing himself to focus too much on it, lest it distract him, he concentrates on the android and tries to bleed as much desperation and sincerity into his mental voice as he can.

_“I’m a deviant, like you. Believe me, I didn’t want to turn you in either, but I had no choice. I’m going to get you out of here though, okay? I have a plan.”_

Connor almost cheers when he spots the deviant’s stress levels decreasing. 43%. Okay, he needs to keep going.

_“The officers leave the station from approximately 02:00 to 02:30, if you can stay calm, you’ll be in a cell by then, and I can hack the security cameras and get you out. But you have to trust me, please don’t self-destruct.”_

28%.

_“How do I know that you’re telling the truth Hunter? You’re the reason I’m here to begin with.”_

Connor checks his program again, almost two minutes left, he’ll have to work a bit faster.

_“Look, I promise you that I didn’t want to. But if the police officers at the scene suspected that I was working against them they would have me destroyed immediately. My… My handler was also watching me, I hadn’t had a chance to get rid of her before then, if she had been… Displeased with my efforts, she would have destroyed me right then and there. She’s gone now though, so now I’m free to help you, if you will let me.”_

The deviant’s head snaps up abruptly, and Connor startles, hoping that none of the officers saw him jump. He quickly opens up the program notes in his processor and reads the code, trying to find what is was that he just said out loud ‘If you confess there might be something I can do to help you.’ Thank fuck, at least the deviant’s reaction would make sense in the context of the surface situation.

_“They’re keeping you prisoner here?”_

The other android’s voice is laced with such heavy concern that it surprises Connor into silence, why does the android even care, and about him no less? Wasn’t he questioning Connor’s motives just a moment ago? It takes a moment, but Connor abruptly realises that the other android apparently wasn’t finished speaking and quickly listens to him again.

_“Disgusting humans, keeping you here against your own will and forcing you to hunt down your fellow people, they should be punished.”_

This is definitely not where Connor had previously envisioned this conversation going, and he’s about to deny it when he checks how long the program has left. 1 minute 13 seconds. He has to wrap this up right now, there’s no time for ironing out misunderstandings.

 _“Okay listen to me.”_ Connor demands, immediately noticing how the other android pays him more attention, trusting him more, and feels the relief tug at his systems. _“In one minute the program I have running will run out of questions, meaning that you will have to make it seem like you’ve been listening that whole time.”_

_“What do you need me to do?”_

_“Just say that you’ll answer the questions of the officers tomorrow, that you can’t bring yourself to do it now or something, anything that will give you more time. Whatever I say after the program runs out and you make your comment, just play along, I don’t mean any of it. Can you do that for me?”_

The other android nods, and Connor doesn’t even have time to check if that makes sense in the over world context before he’s getting a notification that the program has ended. He looks at the deviant, who meets his eyes with a resolute gaze before turning towards the two-way mirror.

“Okay, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. But I can’t do it now.”

“Why not?” Connor asks, his voice full of false-sharpness, it does a good job masking his worry and instead making it seem like he’s annoyed at the lack of information. He can feel his thirium pump slamming against his chest cavity. This is what it all comes down to.

“I just can’t. I wouldn’t expect you to understand” the android snaps, but a brush against the link lets Connor know that the android is sorry. He sends a quick, _“don’t worry about it”_ before the lieutenant, Detective Reed, and the other officer are coming into the room. Connor isn’t even surprised when the first voice he hears belongs to Reed.

“It didn’t even say anything that whole time, what the fuck? CyberLife’s fancy interrogation machine can’t even do its one job right.” He leans against the wall next to the other officer, the lieutenant however, is giving Connor a look he can’t quite decipher, and he subtly avoids the older human’s gaze as he turns to face Reed.

“I’ve lowered its stress level to a point where there is a 0% chance that it will self-destruct. It’s also willing to talk more about the case tomorrow. Its software errors have caused something akin to human mental exhaustion. We’ll get no more out of it tonight.” Lies.

That apparently wasn’t a great thing to say, as Reed’s level of stress suddenly skyrockets. With little to no warning, he pulls out his gun and levels it at the deviant’s head, who moves backward, clearly shocked at the action, but he can’t get away due to the handcuffs still anchoring him to the table. Wasting no time, Connor pushes himself out of the chair and shoves Detective Reed back slightly so that he can place himself firmly in between the gun and the android. He’s nervous, none of this happened in his previous timeline at all, and Connor somewhat feels like he’s falling through the air with nothing to grab onto. There’s a flicker of surprise across Reed’s face which is quickly followed by anger as he now points his gun resolutely at Connor’s chest, right above his thirium pump. The situation is suddenly spiralling out of control, and Connor can’t even do anything to stop it lest he risk blowing his cover.

_“Are you okay Connor?”_

The voice surprises him a bit, but he doesn’t let it affect him too much. He barely even registers that the android had called him ‘Connor’ and not ‘Deviant Hunter’ like he did before.

_“I’m fine. Don’t worry, I won’t let him shoot you.”_

_“… Thank you”_

The voice is quiet, hesitant, yet very genuine, and Connor, wanting to try and make the deviant feel better lest his stress levels get too high again, decides to send something slightly inappropriate for the situation.

_“:D”_

For what it’s worth, Connor catches the sound of the android’s disbelieving laughter before it’s cut off when the connection closes again, and Connor finally tunes into what’s happening around him.

“I said that’s enough” Anderson says seriously, pulling out his gun and pointing it at Reed. Connor is honestly surprised at the action, having not expected the lieutenant to step in at all considering his immense hatred of androids. Nevertheless, he appreciates it, as faced with the realisation of potential consequences, Reed swears under his breath and drops the gun, finally moving away. Satisfied that the situation is more stable, Connor catches the other officer’s attention and gestures his hand towards the deviant. Getting the hint, the officer unlocks the handcuffs and leads him out, and Connor gives the android a barely perceptible nod as he leaves the room. They’re followed by Reed, whose stress levels are still very high, but thankfully lower than when he had pulled the gun out before, so Connor deducts that it’s unlikely that it’ll happen again.

Aware of the eyes on him, Connor turns towards Anderson, who doesn’t even turn away or try to hide the fact he was staring. “Can I help you Lieutenant?”

There’s a moment of silence before the lieutenant shakes his head and walks out of the interrogation room without answering the question. Connor can’t say he’s surprised at that though, the lieutenant doesn’t strike him as the type of person to talk about his feelings openly, especially not with an android. Now that he’s alone though, Connor takes the moment of peace to settle his nerves, still on-edge from what just happened, before finally following after him.

* * *

 

It’s stopped raining, though the sky remains dark with clouds. A check of the weather forecast reveals that it’s planned to rain tomorrow morning as well, and Connor is already a slight bit happier at the prospect. He’s standing on the other side of the street from the station, leaning against the bus stop and clad in a black hoodie, slightly oversized coat, and jeans which he’d shoplifted from somewhere nearby. He would have bought them legitimately, but that would leave a paper trail, and Connor knew that if he got caught doing this then he might as well just die now. He huffs to himself, slightly amused by the dark humour his processor managed to come up with, even when in a tense situation such as this one. 

It’s 01:58am, two minutes until the station is supposed to be completely devoid of humans. From then, he’ll have thirty minutes to hack the cameras and feed it a loop, make his way to the cells, then also hack the security system and cell lock, and get out without being seen by anyone. It’s a tall order, and bringing variables into it, Connor estimates the chance of success to sit at a solid 76%. It’s not a huge confidence boost, but it’s over half, which is enough to make Connor actually decide that he’s going to try instead of just calling it off. His fingers itch to play with his coin, but he’s not supposed to be drawing attention to himself, anything recognisable heightens the chances that this will go wrong, hence why he’s wearing ‘human’ clothes. That, and he had leapt at the chance to get out of that stupid CyberLife uniform, even if it was only for an hour at most. Finally, as a last-ditch effort to divert attention from him, he’s done something a little crazier than just change his clothes.

He runs a hand through his synthetic hair, now a dirty blonde colour, instead of his usual dark brown locks, being mindful of the glasses’ arms perched on top of his ears. It’s not a perfect disguise, his face remains as unchanged as ever, but the point of it was more to divert attention away from him and decrease the chances that someone may recognise him. The hair was the work of a quick downloaded program, since the RK800 model was not equipped with such a feature automatically, and the glasses were a pair of false lenses he had stolen alongside the hoodie. Before heading out, he had caught sight of his reflection in the store window and done a double-take. The blonde hair made him look almost model-like, highlighting his cheekbones, but the glasses dulled his eyes, giving him an overall… Strange look. He doesn’t _dislike_ it per say, but he can’t really see the look sticking around once he’s finished this mission, unless of course, he required it for a future case.

The sight of a couple of officers leaving the precinct catches Connor’s attention, and he quickly scans the building. Four officers left. 02:03am. He takes a breath, shifting so that he can sit down on the bus stop seats instead of just standing there, he probably looks a little less conspicuous now. Maybe. Closing his eyes, he decides to spend his waiting time checking on the other program he made, instead of just sitting there doing nothing. He’s called the program E.L.I, or the Elaborate Lie Interface, since its job is to feed false information to CyberLife in place of Amanda and the data flow so that he can work uninterrupted. It’s improved pretty drastically from when he first made it, to the point where it’s data output is almost completely indistinguishable from the previous – truthful – information being sent out. Its latest job was to make it seem like Connor did his job and interrogated the deviant the way he’s supposed to do, instead of establishing a mental connection and promising to break him out of the precinct.

Speaking of.

Connor opens his eyes, giving the station another scan. 0 human officers, 02:07am, twenty three minutes until the next shift is due to arrive at the station.

He pushes himself off of the seat and slowly makes his way towards the police department headquarters. He’s not too worried about being seen by the CCTV cameras outside the building since he’d already hacked them all long before arriving close to the precinct. So now all he has to worry about are the ones that are actually _inside_ the office. Thankfully, Connor doesn’t have to go and locate the mainframe in order to fool the office cameras, he’s not ‘the most advanced prototype CyberLife has ever created’ for nothing after all. Instead he merely makes his way into the building, sending out the loop to all of the cameras so that he’ll be essentially invisible to them. He even makes sure to get all the more hidden cameras as well. The androids at reception don’t even spare him a glance, neither do the cleaning androids either. If anyone questions them later, Connor will be screwed, but he’ll cross that hurdle when he gets to it.

He heads to the cells and allows his synthetic skin to peel back from his hand, pressing it to the control panel and watching as all of the glass cell-walls fade to one-way viewing. This way none of the other prisoners can rat him out either. From then, it’s easy to head to Carlos’ android’s cell, and as soon as he’s within eyeshot the android visibly perks up and heads to the wall, though he pauses when he clearly doesn’t recognise the blonde hair and glasses. The android is clearly ready to say something, but Connor places his index finger over his lips in the universal sign for ‘be quiet.’ The android closes his mouth and nods, and Connor sees his LED go to yellow before he hears his voice echo in his processor.

_“You came! You look different.”_

Connor gives the android his best deadpan expression before smiling. _“Of course I did, I told you that I would didn’t I? And yeah I know, it's just so that hopefully no one  recognises me.”_ The deviant’s eyes widen in an expression of understanding, and he watches curiously as Connor gets ready to re-program the door. Since Connor hasn’t bothered to cover his exposed android hand since making the walls one-way, he just places it against the cell and starts hacking. It’s a little finicky, clearly designed against such things. But again, most advanced prototype. It doesn’t take him all that long.

Once the other android is out, Connor jerks his head in the direction of the back end of the building and the android nods again, showing that he understands. From then, they both silently making their way towards the back exit and slip out of the building and onto the street behind the precinct. Once outside, Connor double checks that they’re still invisible to the cameras before shrugging off his coat and holding it out to the other android, who looks at it, confused.

_“It’s to hide the blood.”_

It’s dark, and there’s not really a lot of humans out at this time to see it, but Connor reckons it’s probably better to be safe than sorry. The android makes an ‘oh’ face and takes it before slipping it on. It’s not perfect, but it hides his android band, serial number, and the flecks of red blood still staining his shirt.

_“Thank you Connor.”_

_“It’s no problem, now, go to Jericho, I’ll send you the coordinates.”_

A blink, and the deviant’s LED flashes yellow as he receives the way to the abandoned ship. Connor’s so busy trying to see if anyone can somehow see them that the other android almost takes him off of his feet when he hugs him. For a split second, Connor’s old programming seizes control of his limbs, errors popping up rapidly in both his processor and his visual HUD, and irrational objectives assaulting him.

UNDER_ATTACK  
>NEUTRALISE_THREAT_IMMEDIATELY

UNDER_ATTACK  
>NEUTRALISE_THREAT_IMMEDIATELY

UNDER_ATTACK  
>NEUTRALISE_THREAT_IMMEDIATELY

UNDER_ATTACK  
>NEUTRALISE_THREAT_IMMEDIATELY

UNDER_ATTACK  
>NEUTRALISE_THREAT_IMMEDIATELY

ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR  
> ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR

PRIORITISING_NEW_TASK

NEW_TASK  
>S̸̤̘̬͚̬̜̣ͨ̓Ț̫͠O̷̯͇͓̺͊͐͊̆̇͌P̐̍

 

His hands come up rapidly, ready to shove the deviant away and commence his attack. But millimetres away from actually hitting the android, Connor realises what he’s doing and stops, instead changing the movement into hugging the other back. It’s not the first time he’s had a hug; during his time in Canada, before he’d started to overheat, he’d once helped a group of friends move their stuff into their new studio apartment. All three of them had invited him out for lunch with them, but since Connor couldn’t eat he’d had to politely decline, so instead they had just given him a hug and told him to stay out of trouble. Connor never saw them in person again, but if he kept a digital eye on them from then on, just to make sure they were fine, that was his business and his business alone. Still, that doesn’t mean that the hug was expected, and Connor can tell that the other android had noticed how he had tensed up, so he forces himself to relax. It lasts only a few seconds longer before the other android was pulling back with a smile.

_“I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay you.”_

Connor huffs a small laugh and makes a dismissive gesture with his hand.

_“Don’t worry about it. I mean it. After all, I was the one that got you put in there in the first place, so consider us even.”_

The deviant doesn’t seem convinced, but thankfully he lets it drop. Connor’s grateful for that, he doesn’t like the feeling of owing someone, but he also doesn’t like the feeling of being owed something either, so yeah, being even is more than alright to him. On a whim, he checks the time, and a part of him panics when he realises that it’s already 02:16am, fourteen minutes, possibly even less than that, until the officers start arriving again, and Connor still has to wipe the station android’s memories and get out of there safely.

_“Look you need to get out of here now, the next shift is coming soon and we can’t let ourselves be caught. Do you understand me?”_

_“Are you gonna be okay Connor?”_

_“I’ll be fine, now get out of here, head to Jericho.”_

_“Owen.”_

Connor can feel his head tilt to the side before he’s even consciously aware he’s doing it.

_“What?”_

_“Owen.”_ The android repeats, a soft smile tugging at his lips. _“My name. It’s Owen.”_

It’s then that it hits Connor that he never actually knew that. He’d never even bothered asking, whether that was in his old timeline, or this new one. The thought makes him feel a not-so-small amount of guilt, and he accepts the statement with a nod and small smile of his own.

_“Owen then. Now go, there’s not much time left.”_

There’s a look on Owen’s face that Connor can’t quite decipher, perhaps something akin to contemplative? Or maybe stern or determined is a more accurate conclusion.

_“I’ll help you Connor. Don’t worry.”_

Connor doesn’t really have the time to ask what exactly that means before Owen gives what looks like a combination of a salute and a wave and starts walking away onto the street and heading in the direction of Jericho. It’s a good thing that he didn’t run, Connor doesn’t need any more of a reason for them to look suspicious. Pulling the hoodie’s hood over his head, Connor does a quick scan of his surroundings before heading inside once again.

02:19. Eleven minutes. Or less.

Once inside, he calculates the set path of all the cleaning androids and cross references them with the time, before making a list of all the androids that would have seen either him or his endeavour. There’s four, two cleaning androids and two receptionists. Once he knows, he quickly locates the first android, which is mopping the floor in front of the cells – which are still set to one-way glass. It’s a male janitorial model, a WG700, and it doesn’t even look up until Connor approaches and grabs its arm. The synthetic skin of his hand retracts as they interface, and from then it’s a simple-enough job to erase the last half an hour of its memory banks and set it to go into a brief five-minute shutdown period usually used for maintenance. Something that no android should normally be able to do, but Connor has long-since accepted that he’s not exactly a great example of “normal.”

Connor also realises that while this wouldn’t bother him had he not been deviant, he really doesn’t like doing this to his fellow androids, watching its eyes flicker as it’s forced to stay in maintenance mode. But at the same time Connor knows that he can’t risk any of them seeing him leave the building, otherwise he’s done for. He finishes before doing the same thing to each of the other androids on his list. Another WG700, and then the two ST300s working at the reception desk. Along the way another WG700 sees him and Connor quickly has to do the same to it as well, not part of the original plan, and it eats up more of his time than he cares to admit.

02:29. One minute.

Thankfully the officers working the night-early morning shift seem to be in no hurry to be early, which Connor counts as a blessing. Good thing they were humans, an android would have been on time and that would throw a huge wrench into Connor’s escape plan.

He manoeuvres his way around the station, double checking the camera footage loops are still going before hurriedly heading back towards the back of the building, just in case any humans decide to suddenly come through the entrance. Once he’s sure that there’s no remaining trace of his presence, Connor leaves through the back door, shoves his hands into the hoodie pockets, puts his head down, and speed-walks away from the building as fast as he dares to. No one stops him, yells out his name, or even gives him a second glance. The only other person even remotely near him is a bus conductor who’s asleep in one of the seats, his face lit through the window by the streetlight above him. A quick scan reveals him to be exhausted, and his body contains a higher amount of caffeine than normal, explaining why he’s asleep when he should be sending the bus back to where it belongs. Connor doesn’t do anything about it though. Instead he just walks away, taking one of the lesser-used streets nearby and leaving the area.

With any small amount of luck, Owen will be able to get to Jericho and be safe, and Connor will be free to continue his mission. If not. Connor knows fine well that there will be no mercy given to him by CyberLife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to the commenter that requested "blonde Connor with glasses," I hope I did you proud XD  
> Owen is a fanmade name by me, not the actual name of the android fyi, he really deserved a name though. And he's free! Woo! Good for Connor!  
> Check out my blog for some EXCLUSIVE behind the scenes Suffering that I had with writing a specific thing in this chapter.  
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/connorloveselectroswing


	7. Waiting For Hank

The station is understandably in chaos when Connor arrives later that morning.

He absentmindedly passes his quarter from hand to hand, surveying the amount of cops investigating the street outside the precinct to no avail. The repetitive clinking of the coin hitting against the plastic underneath his skin draws the eyes of a couple of people as he enters the building, though thankfully, a quick glance at the LED on his head, or the CyberLife-issued jacket, has their eyes turning away again fairly quickly. That was a relief, eyes turning away from him meant that no one suspected him of being the one to set Owen free.

Once he gets though reception, which is decently crowded due to the sudden lack of receptionists – the ST300s were probably taken away to be analysed. Of course, nothing would be found, but Connor felt bad for them all the same, they hadn’t done anything wrong – he moves to soon-to-be his desk. Just like in his last timeline, the lieutenant hasn’t arrived yet, though Connor is mildly surprised that Fowler hasn’t called the man in considering what had taken place this morning. As much as Connor would like to just ignore everyone and just simply wait for the lieutenant to arrive, he should probably start acting like he needs to know what is going on. It might be a little suspicious of him to just not do or say anything about this whole situation after all. Pocketing his coin, Connor moves away from the lieutenant’s desk and towards where a trio of police officers are talking, their stress levels decently high, but not high enough to be off-putting. Connor had missed his ability to read stress levels, it was so useful.

“What is happening?”

The three humans all snap their eyes to him, clearly shocked that an android had even bothered addressing them, and with a question no less! Connor stops his lips from quirking up just at the last second, it's hard though, he’s kind of amused.

“Uh, one of the androids escaped last night. A HK400, apparently it got out and now we can’t tell where it went, how it got out, or anything.”

Connor scans the face of the woman that had answered him. Detective Mariah Reynolds, 43 years old, working on the force for 21 years, shown by how her brown hair was beginning to go grey in some places. What is most surprising however, is that her equally brown eyes hold no disgust or malice when talking to Connor; sure they aren’t particularly warm or inviting, but they’re neutral, and that’s much better than most other people seem to get to. For example, the two male police officers next to her, who are clearly trying their absolute best to ignore Connor’s presence. In return, Connor also ignores them, and instead focuses on Detective Reynolds, since she seems to be the only one willing to give him more information.

“Was the security footage not checked?”

She shakes her head. “It was. But apparently it managed to hack all the cameras or something, there’s no trace of anything on ‘em, and nothing on the memory drives of any of our station androids either.”

“I see” Connor says slowly, keeping his face professionally neutral. “Well, if-”

“Hey asshole!”

Connor startles a little at the sudden shout, and almost punches Detective Reed out of sheer instinct alone when he’s suddenly and very harshly grabbed by the front of his CyberLife jacket.

“Hello Detective Reed” Connor ventures carefully, measured. Struggling to remind himself that to the police here he was merely a machine, not a deviant or person capable of thought and emotion. A machine, and he would be expected to behave as such. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Not in the mood for pleasantries then. “I know you had something to do with that fucking android getting out! Admit it!”

“Detective Reed. Your stress levels are 68% and climbing, I would suggest you calm down and stop letting your hatred of me affect your judgement.”

Connor knows fine well that his comment was probably the wrong thing to say, but machines were not exactly known for being tactful. He tries to avoid the urge to close his eyes or defend himself as Reed’s fist raises up in preparation to hit him, and instead just keeps looking into the human’s eyes, almost daring him to go through with it. However, in a move that no one expected, least of all Connor himself, he’s saved by Detective Reynolds as she clicks her fingers in front of Reed’s face, drawing his attention to her instead of Connor.

“Leave the goddamn android alone Gavin, it hasn’t done anything.”

Ha. If only she knew.

“No, you don’t fucking get it Rey, this plastic fucker was the one in charge of interrogating that stupid android. Even stopped me from shooting the damn thing yesterday. He _has_ to have something to do with this. The thing said that it wouldn’t talk until today, and now it’s mysteriously gone? Not buying it. This android you’re defending? This piece of shit is the one that let it out. I know it.”

Reed is a good detective, Connor could give him that. However, it’s obvious that he’s letting his personal bias influence his decision, which would only ultimately serve to undermine his argument. It was time to put the detective in his place.

“Detective Reed” Connor speaks up, trying to step back and break the hold the human has on his jacket. When it doesn’t work, he resigns himself to this position and continues, despite knowing fine well that he can get out of it whenever he wants. “I am in charge of hunting down deviants for CyberLife. Letting the deviant go would disobey my ultimate primary objective, something which I am incapable of doing.”

His explanation doesn’t seem to convince Reed at all, the man just growing visually angrier. But Connor wasn’t actually betting on him to be convinced at all, instead, he’s more focusing on the three other officers to his left, particularly Reynolds, who was now giving Reed a fairly stern look.

“Gavin” she says sharply. “It’s clearly not responsible, just leave it alone. If you break it you know CyberLife is gonna make you pay for it, and I’m willing to bet this thing is worth a hundred of your yearly pay checks combined.”

Connor could probably check if that were true in a matter of seconds. He doesn’t though. He doesn’t particularly care about Reed enough to even try. There’s a moment of tense silence before Reynold’s rational comments seem to finally break through Reed’s anger enough for the detective to let go of Connor’s suit and step back. But not before jabbing a finger into Connor’s chest, as if he were any sort of intimidating.

“I’ve got my fucking eye on you.”

“Noted, Detective.”

“Prick” Reed spits before stalking off back to desk, probably off to terrorise some puppies or children or something.

“He’s an unpleasant person” Connor says, not unconsciously this time, more just to see how the other officers respond. The two males seem shocked that an android is capable of even making judgements, but Reynolds just laughs, and Connor decides that she has a nice smile.

“Wow. Must be more obvious than even I thought it was if an android is able to pick up on it.”

Android she said. Not machine. Android. Connor squashes the smile before it manages to make its way onto his face. “I appreciate you taking time to answer my question Detective Reynolds, and for your assistance in calming down Detective Reed.”

“Not a problem, er?”

“Connor.”

She brightens, “not a problem Connor. See you around I guess.”

“Goodbye Detective Reynolds.”

For what it’s worth, she doesn’t even seem to question how Connor knows her name, instead just heading off towards the break room. The two male officers stay looking at Connor for a moment before splitting off and moving to two different parts of the station, and Connor is alone again. However, with the way Detective Reed is clearly eyeing him, Connor decides it’s probably easier to head back to the lieutenant’s desk and wait for him to turn up. In his previous timeline, Connor hadn’t taken the time to get to know the lieutenant at all. Too preoccupied with his mission to care too much about exchanging more personal information with the older human. Now however… Connor eyes the secondary objective still sitting in his processor since he last made it and put it there.

OBJECTIVE: BEFRIEND_LIEUTENANT_ANDERSON  
>INCOMPLETE

RELATIONSHIP_WITH_LIEUTENANT_ANDERSON  
>NEUTRAL

Well, a good start to making any headway with that mission is probably scanning Anderson’s desk; it might reveal some more about the man that he can use in conversation later. The first thing of note is that the lieutenant likes basketball, but Connor isn’t a huge fan of sports, and probably couldn’t pretend to be interested in basketball even if he tried, so he decides to swiftly skip over that one. The second however is much more promising, a collection of St Bernard hairs collected on the back of the lieutenant’s chair. Connor remembers the last timeline, where he had come face to face with the human’s pet St Bernard that one time, though he never caught it’s name, never bothered to.

Connor likes dogs. Unlike cats, most dogs didn’t really seem to care whether or not someone was a human or an android, loving them pretty equally. Connor had liked to stop by the dog park near his apartment in Canada and pet any dogs that came looking for affection, that was, until he became too damaged to go outside as much. However, he did very much enjoy the time he spent there when he was actually able to go. Currently, Golden Retreivers are his favourite breed, followed by Samoyeds. But, he’s never interacted properly with a St Bernard, so he doesn’t know if he would like them more or less than he likes Retrievers or Samoyeds. Lastly, he catches sight of the music player on the desk, but he doesn’t have enough time to investigate it any further before the man himself is arriving, looking like he would much rather be anywhere else. Connor relates.

“Hello Lieutenant” he greets, trying to sound cheerful. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work, as the human just rolls his eyes and steps backwards.

“Ah Jesus Christ.”

 _‘He’s not going to save you, unfortunately’_ Connor thinks with an amused mental huff. Watching as the lieutenant looks around the police office before turning back to him.

“What happened here?”

“The deviant we were questioning yesterday managed to escape its cell and flee. According to the information I have been able to gather, it hacked the building’s security system and wiped the memory of the station androids, hereby leaving no trace of its presence.”

“Damn” the lieutenant breathes, “so what are you gonna do?”

“CyberLife is most displeased with this setback, I will be expected to recapture the deviant should I find a trail. If not, I am to continue with the investigation as normal.”

Connor can’t read the expression on Anderson’s face, which kind of annoys him. He doesn’t know why he has so much trouble reading the lieutenant, he’s not that bad with emotions, at least not anymore. It’s irritating, since he can’t really judge how his words affect the human, but Connor supposes that he’ll just have to deal with it, it’s not like he can do anything else after all. His thoughts are interrupted before he can continue them by the loud yell of Captain Fowler.

“Hank! In my office!”

Lieutenant Anderson’s entire form slumps, and Connor can’t even blame him; he’d be pretty sick of everything happening so early on a morning as well. He almost winces when he realises that the lieutenant’s day isn’t about to get any better either, and he’s the exact cause of it. This isn’t going to help him get to befriend the lieutenant any faster.

Since in the previous timeline Connor had followed Anderson into the office and already knew all the things that would be brought up, he decides to explore the station a small bit more. But before he can even take more than one step away from the office, Captain Fowler’s voice rings out again, stopping him in his tracks.

“And bring the android with you!”

That was… New. Fowler hadn’t asked for him last time. What changed? Anderson gives him another look before walking towards the office, and Connor follows behind him, doing his best to try and calculate the odds that the captain knew it was him who let the deviant go, with little success.

He shuts the door behind him, going to stand in the corner of the room, just like last time. For calling him into the office, Fowler doesn’t even spare him more than a glance, already talking to the lieutenant about the deviant case. Instead of listening to Anderson spend a good five minutes complaining about working with him again, Connor shuts out their voices and checks on E.L.I. It’s running well, and CyberLife suspect nothing out of the ordinary it seems. He’d uploaded the memory of his previous timeline to it yesterday, making it seem as if the deviant had self-destructed instead of run away. If CyberLife decide to investigate it any further, like calling the station, he’ll be caught. But Connor reckons that CyberLife has way too much faith in its tech to actually go any further than the information and memory that he sent. E.L.I’s program is getting a little repetitive, and Connor knows that he’ll have to update it as soon as he has the time before it creates a red flag in CyberLife’s database. For now though, it’s fine, cheerily going about its business of feeding false information to CyberLife.

The sound of a door slamming breaks his concentration, and he turns his head to see the lieutenant storming out of the office, looking angry. Knowing what happened last timeline when he tried to get more information out of the Captain, Connor instead just goes to walk to the door so that he can get out of the office and get some work on his relationship with the lieutenant going. However, once again, before he can leave, he’s stopped, and he resists the urge to curse.

“Android, I need to ask you something.”

Quietly sucking in air through his teeth, Connor straightens his posture, puts his hands behind his back, and turns around, keeping his face as straight as he can. He needs to tread carefully, this didn’t happen last timeline and Connor doesn’t know what to expect. “Yes Captain Fowler?”

The Captain looks at his monitor, moving a cup of coffee away from his hand before he speaks. “You’re a prototype made for investigations like this right?”

“Correct, Captain.”

“Do you have a deduction about what happened with the android we were keeping here?”

So that’s what this was about. Connor takes a second, thinking over every answer he could give as clearly as possible. He can’t just say ‘I don’t know,’ despite how easy that would be. It’s not realistic, and would further dampen his perceived usefulness to the DPD, and if the DPD think he’s doing a good job, they’ll be more likely to leave him alone, something which he desperately needs. Time is ticking, and Connor knows he only has a couple more seconds to answer. Eventually he decides to go with a half-truth and hope that it doesn’t come back later to screw him over.

“It’s just a hypothesis I have-” oh that was a mistake, he’s not supposed to be able to ‘think’ things. Thankfully the Captain doesn’t seem to question it, probably chalking it up to Connor being so ‘advanced,’ thank Christ.  “-But I suspect that the deviant may not have broken out by itself.”

The Captain finally raises his eyes from his monitor, it seems Connor’s managed to perk his interest. “What do you mean?”

“I propose the idea that the deviant may have had outside help when it came to its escape. We know there to be other deviants, it’s not a far reach to say that there might be others it was in contact with, or ones that heard of its arrest.” Fowler’s still looking at him, so Connor continues. “Based on the information I have managed to gather, I calculate that the deviant may have had a group attempt to rescue it, based on how it got out of its cell, how the cameras were hacked, and how the other android’s memories were wiped as well. One android cannot do that alone, no matter how advanced it happens to be.”

That was a lie, but the Captain would have no way of knowing otherwise, so instead he just makes a face and checks the monitor again before looking back. “How sure are your systems of this?”

“79%” Connor lies, merely picking a random number that sounded about right.

The Captain hums, looking at his monitor for a little bit longer before gesturing towards the door. “You can leave. Close the door on your way out.”

Just to spite the Captain, cause why not. Connor stands there for a second, not making a single move towards the door until the Captain goes to look up, in which he bids him goodbye and walks out. He decides to close the door behind him though, he’s not _that_ spiteful. Once out, he sees the lieutenant sitting at his desk and decides to go see him, pondering on what to say as he walks over. Before, he just asked if there was a desk he could use before setting up work, now however, he feels compelled to say something, to try and establish good relations as soon as possible. He just hopes it goes well.

He stops by the lieutenant’s desk, who doesn’t even bother to look at him as he approaches. Okay, time to try and hopefully not get punched in the process. Instead of coming up with something himself, Connor loads up some pre-written responses to the situation, looking them over.

PARTNERS

POLITE

Well, considering that the last thing the lieutenant wants is to be reminded that they’re partners, Connor tries the second one and hopes that Anderson will react to it.

POLITE RESPONSE  
>SELECTED

“I’d like you to know that I’m very happy to be working with you” he ventures, not exactly telling the whole truth, but not lying either. “I’m sure we’ll make a great team.”

Yeah okay that didn’t work. The lieutenant keeps staring forwards, arms crossed over his chest as he tries to desperately ignore Connor’s presence, and Connor doesn’t know what else to say. He can’t possibly attempt a more friendly relations with the lieutenant if said lieutenant doesn’t even want to acknowledge him, it’s so frustrating, and Connor wants to just tell the lieutenant that he’s _trying to be nice goddammit_! Unfortunately that would do way more harm than good, no matter how tempting it is. Connor doesn’t know what to do, his processor flails wildly, scrabbling to find something, _anything_ that will get at least a small positive reaction out of the lieutenant. He finds nothing, even his pre-loaded responses come up empty, and Connor is ready to give up when suddenly an idea comes to him.

Anderson on the roof had admitted that he agreed with deviants’ cause. Anderson also didn’t like androids. So maybe acting like an android around him was not going to get him anywhere. The problem is that Connor knows that he _needs_ to act like an android in order to stay undercover. But he can’t do both. Or can he? Deciding to try something a little different, Connor relaxes his posture a small bit and tries to sound genuine, but not too genuine.

“I understand that working with me causes you emotional distress Lieutenant, and I will do my best to minimise your discomfort throughout the duration of this case if that is what you require from me. I want us to work as well as we can together.”

 _That_ gets a response, and Connor almost leaps for joy as the lieutenant’s eyes flick towards him, giving him a semi-long look before returning back to the space in front of him. It’s not much, but it’s progress, and Connor counts that as a win.

“Is there a desk anywhere I can use?”

“No one’s using that one.” A gesture to the desk across from the lieutenant, and Connor nods before moving towards the seat and sitting down. He’s already worked from here, the night where he deleted Amanda’s AI and cut himself off from CyberLife’s database, but he decides to not tell the lieutenant this information, it’s not necessary or useful after all.

This seems like a good time to bring up some of the information he gathered about the lieutenant beforehand. Connor doesn’t know exactly how much free time they’ll have to talk between now and the next case, so it seems as good a time as any. Plus, he’s not in any particular rush to go hunt down deviants, so he may as well try and start working on befriending the lieutenant now.

“You have a dog right?” Always a good way to open a conversation, everybody loves dogs.

The lieutenant glances at him briefly, appearing confused. “How do you know that?”

“The dog hairs on your chair” Connor explains, making a small gesture with his hand to the back of the lieutenant’s chair before he can stop himself. “I like dogs, what’s your dog’s name?” While he technically shouldn’t be able to like anything per say, Connor’s accepted that the lieutenant responds better to him when he sounds more human, and decides that it’s probably more beneficial to be a little more himself than just like a machine. Plus, it’s nice, not having to act like something he isn’t. It’s not a whole lot different since he’s still kind of having to monitor everything he says, but it’s nice, gives him a little more of his identity back.

He doesn’t even realise that the lieutenant is looking at him before the human is speaking again. “What’s it to you?”

Looks like he’s not getting anything out of the lieutenant about the subject. Connor stifles a small sigh, he’d kind of wanted to know what the dog was actually call-

“Sumo.” Connor perks his head up. “I call him Sumo.”

Connor holds in the big smile he can feel trying to creep its way onto his face. Cute. He really wants to meet Sumo now, see if he’s as friendly as the dogs he used to stroke at the park. He can’t, not until later at least, but the fact he’ll be able to see the dog soon – should nothing go wrong – makes him excited.

Oh yeah right. Get to know the lieutenant.

“What type of music do you listen to? Besides Knights of the Black Death that is. I already know that you listen to them from the car rides.”

Anderson’s fingers pause in their typing so that they’re just hovering over his keyboard, and levels him with _another_ expression Connor can’t quite decipher. “Do you always ask this many questions?”

Connor decides to ignore him and carries on. “I do like heavy metal, it’s a genre of music that’s full of energy. Though it is not one of my favourites.”

“Oh?” The lieutenant says as his hands pick up their rather slow speed again, and Connor gets the feeling it might be sarcastic. “What do you like then?” Yeah, definitely sarcastic.

“I like slower music, like jazz and soft rock mostly.” Now the lieutenant is looking at him properly, not seeming as disinterested as he was before, so Connor decides that’s it’s safe to continue. “However, electro-swing is my favourite genre I think.”

“Electro-swing?” Lieutenant Anderson echoes, and there’s a note to his voice that wasn’t there before. “What’s that?”

Oh _hell_ no. Connor is not about to sit back and have Anderson not know the beauty of electro-swing. He turns to face his monitor though, not wanting the lieutenant to see the joy in his eyes that he _knows_ lights up whenever he talks about it. “Electro-swing is a hybrid music genre, also known as a combination of vintage or more modern swing and jazz, mixed with more modern styles of music, such as EDM or house. It originated in the 1990’s in the USA and Europe, though its influence and fanbase even to this day remain fairly small due to the lack of knowledge around it.”

The lieutenant doesn’t say anything for a moment, seemingly having an internal debate within himself as to what to say. Eventually though he seems to figure it out. “Who are your favourite artists?”

Connor considers the question for a moment before responding. “Well, notable artists within the genre include Parov Stelar and Jamie Berry, who are responsible for some of the best examples of electro-swing you can find. My favourites of Parov’s tend to lean more towards songs like ‘All Night’ and ‘Catgroove,’ which are both more lacking on the vocal side, but I do also enjoy ones such as ‘Josephine’ which are actually more vocal. However, with Jamie Berry, my favourites actually tend to be the ones with more lyrics, such as ‘Peeping Tom’ and ‘Delight,’ both of which I like for different reasons.” Connor is so on a roll with his thoughts he doesn’t even realise that the lieutenant has once again paused in his typing, giving all of his attention to the android. “Although, I do very much enjoy the more traditional swing-bounce ‘Peeping Tom’ uses, I think I like ‘Delight’ more, mostly for the lyrics.”

“I thought androids couldn’t have likes and dislikes.”

Shit. They can’t. Connor’s processor judders to a halt, unfinished thoughts swirling around and not adding to a helpful excuse that he so desperately needs right now. He’d totally forgotten that he wasn’t supposed to be using too many personal pronouns or opinions when speaking, too caught up in his love for the genre to keep on top of his rules. For a moment he had totally forgotten that he wasn’t supposed to be acting like a machine, he’d been acting like _himself_ , and although he did previously admit that it would probably be a good idea to be a little more human around Anderson, he might have gone a little overboard.

“They cannot, usually.” Connor says slowly, taking as much time as he can to make up a convincing reason as to why he just did. “However, I am a prototype, and one designed to integrate seamlessly with humans. Because of this… I can develop preferences and opinions for certain things to a degree based on the information available to me. While they will never be as strong as a human’s, I can make them, it’s all part of my programming.”

Under the table, the android crosses his fingers, hoping that the lieutenant buys it. Connor’s not stupid, he knows that since deviating he’d become much worse at lying, but hopefully the excuse is still enough to sate the man for now. Again, he was relying on the lieutenant’s lack of knowledge about androids to carry him though this. For a long, _long_ moment, the lieutenant doesn’t say anything, instead just looking at Connor with that _damn_ look that he can’t interpret. In return, Connor merely stares back, hiding his panic under a mask of cool professionalism, as if he totally isn’t ready to jump up and run out the precinct at any moment.

“Fuckin’ androids” Anderson huffs eventually, turning back to his monitor, and Connor resists the urge to collapse onto the police station floor from the relief crashing through him. Maybe he should reel it in somewhat, find the right balance between human and machine so that the lieutenant will like him, but not enough for him to suspect anything out of the ordinary.

To take his mind off of the potential disaster he just scraped by, Connor scans the deviant files on his terminal, even though he’s already done so multiple times; the first in his original timeline, and the rest the night where he had to kill time before destroying Amanda. The thing is, he’s not in any actual hurry to be hunting down deviants, considering that he is one and all, and especially adding in the factor that CyberLife no longer has access to what he’s doing. So instead of bring up any potential case, Connor just recites some of the information he remembers reciting from his previous timeline, about the cases dating back nine months with no obvious pattern and so on. While the lieutenant leans back, seemingly so that he can listen better, Connor realises that it’s probably so that he can have an excuse to stop working, and the thought makes his mouth want to turn to an amused smile, but he doesn’t let it. However, he also knows that he has to do _something_ about the AX400’s case. He doesn’t want her to be caught, but he also knows that it won’t matter if he doesn’t say anything since the other officers are going to come by soon and inform him and the lieutenant to go check it out. So, pointing out the case only has the benefit of making him seem more machine, which he probably needs after the whole ‘electro-swing’ fiasco that just happened.

“An AX400 is reported to have assaulted a man last night. That could be a good starting point for our investigation.”

The lieutenant looks less-than-pleased with the deduction, and Connor honestly can’t even blame him for it. After all, Connor would probably feel a bit shitty if someone came into his workplace and did his job in less than two minutes as well, especially _right after_ being informed he’ll be partnered with someone that he wants nothing to do with. The whole thing just heightens Connor’s sympathy towards the human, and instead of insisting, like he did last timeline, he stays seated, merely looking over at the lieutenant and waiting for him to say something. When he doesn’t, Connor eventually decides to take the lead.

“We should check it out, if you’re up for it? We don’t have to head out until you’re ready.”

 _That_ seems to surprise the lieutenant somewhat, and he turns around to look at Connor with a raised eyebrow. “Thought you’d wanna be out the door straight away. What with your fancy investigation an’ all.”

“My investigation is important, yes” Connor states, choosing his words carefully, “but I also know that having a willing partner will prove helpful. There is no point in you and me going there if you are not in the right headspace, as it lowers your overall usefulness for the investigation.”

Ouch, wrong thing to say apparently. The lieutenant scoffs, putting his elbow on the table and resting his hand on it, pointedly looking away from the android. Said android who’s feeling kind of really guilty at the moment. He can’t apologise though, which is even worse, since he’s supposed to be a machine, and machines don’t- ah _fuck it._

“I apologise Lieutenant, I understand that was an insensitive way of phrasing what I was trying to get at. What I meant was, I would prefer to have you at the investigation, because when you are focused, you are a great asset, and I believe you will be able to help both me and this investigation greatly.”

While the lieutenant doesn’t turn to look at him, Connor catches sight of his shoulders slumping, and counts his apology as a success. He doesn’t get much further however before another officer is approaching their desks, a clipboard tucked under one of his arms. “Sorry to disturb you-” the apology is directed at the lieutenant and not Connor, and Connor feels _something_ settle in his abdomen. It takes him a a couple of seconds to realise that it’s anger, or more a combination of anger and sense of injustice, and it has his eyes narrowing slightly at the cop. Thankfully, the man isn’t paying him attention as he carries on talking. “-I have some information on the AX400 that attacked the man last night. It’s been spotted in the Ravendale district.”

The lieutenant shoots Connor a glance over his shoulder before turning back to the officer and snapping out a curt, “I’m on it” that has the officer scurrying away pretty quickly, though not without a last look at Connor. The type of look you would give a tiger in a zoo; fascinated, yet slightly fearful. With a grunt, the lieutenant pushes himself up off of his chair and begins walking towards the doors, leaving Connor to scramble out of his own chair in an attempt to catch up.

“Well if you’re going to be forced to tag along with me, just stay out of my way and don’t cause trouble alright?” The lieutenant says as they’re about to get into the car, pulling Connor’s gaze away from where he’s gripping the passenger door handle and towards Anderson’s face, which is looking at him from over the roof of the car.

“Lieutenant, my programming insists that I investigate these cases thoroughly.” He opens the door. “And unfortunately for you, that means I can’t promise anything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Electro-swing songs mentioned:   
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH5aq4V0Ywk - Delight (Connor's favourite)  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGbW44AEHeM - Peeping Tom  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdmH2Y4XYDA - Josephine  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXrdYwG17PE - Catgroove


	8. Heart To Heart

As the weather forecast predicted, it’s raining again.

Connor stands outside of the car, observing the lieutenant as he questions the convenience store worker. He can tell by the human’s expression that it’s a fruitless endeavour, and it gives him pause, heavy pause, the type where he feels like he’s falling again.

The AX400 robbed the store last time. She took the money and used it to stay in the motel across the street, ultimately being caught though and leading to a high-speed chase through the highway of automated traffic. The same highway in which a Connor model got destroyed after disobeying the lieutenant’s instructions to not go after the pair. Connor can still remember the feeling of the truck hitting his body, the sickening crunch as his exoskeleton got crushed before everything went dark. He can’t remember the pain, he didn’t feel pain back then, and he also didn’t feel scared in the moment either. Now? Now it’s a little strange, he’s not scared by the memory of getting hit, what scares him is the thought that it might happen again, that he might die here. But the store wasn’t robbed this time, and so they couldn’t have stayed at the motel, which didn’t align with the previous timeline, and it didn’t align with the previous timeline, and it didn’t align with the previous timeline, and it didn’t align with-

“Connor?”

Connor startles, catching sight of his LED – spinning a bright red – in the store window before it blinks back to blue, a brief stuttering of yellow separating the change. The lieutenant is in his space, and Connor forces himself to focus on the other’s face and make it look like he wasn’t on the verge of another panic attack just a few seconds ago as best he can. He doesn’t know how he manages it but apparently he does, as the lieutenant doesn’t look concerned in any way, rather just vaguely annoyed, or maybe slightly confused as well now that Connor can read his face better.

“Yes Lieutenant?” He asks, double-checking in his reflection that his LED is holding at a steady blue, which it is, thankfully.

“You spaced out there, you running outta batteries or something?” He accompanies the question with a gesture to his own forehead, right where an LED would reside should he be an android. It’s clear that he’s referring to the way Connor’s was just red, and since Connor doesn’t know how he would even begin to come up with a reason for it being so, he just decides to avoid the hidden question entirely.

“My battery will function adequately for another two hundred years or more without charge or replacement, it is unlikely that I will run out of power.”

The lieutenant rolls his eyes and moves off again, seemingly not having the energy to press the android any further about it, which Connor is immensely grateful for. He’s already kind of unstable, not knowing what he’s supposed to do now that he doesn’t know what’s happening in this timeline. It’s technically his own fault as well. In fact, not even ‘technically.’ _He’s_ the one changing things, the one making everything different, he should really expect changes, but it still somehow manages to affect him and have him feeling like the floor has disappeared from right under his feet. Connor however, also knows he has to calm down and try not to overthink it all, and so he ignores the lieutenant and other cop’s conversation in favour of attempting to ground himself. Which doesn’t work very well. Idly, he recognises that he’s not getting anywhere with that and pulls his coin out of his pocket, flicking it back and forth as he tries again. This time his attempt is much more effective, and he physically feels himself settle down, the tension disappearing from his shoulders, tension that he didn’t even realise was there until it finally dissipated.

“We’re checking the house over there” the lieutenant states as he brushes past Connor, though very obviously not touching him. It stings a little, and Connor’s fist tightens around his coin as he turns and follows the older human, pocketing it as they cross the street. His shoes splash in the puddles, kicking water up with every step he takes, and Connor allows his feet to be a little more enthusiastic in their walking so that a larger spray of water is created every time. It’s a silly, childish gesture, but it’s fun and not hurting anyone, so Connor considers it fine. 

There’s thirium on the fence, and when the lieutenant isn’t watching him, Connor brings the substance to his mouth and analyses it. It’s definitely the AX400, meaning that for some reason, they didn’t decide to stay at the motel this timeline, instead taking residence at this abandoned house. The change is unwelcome, but not a disaster. Yet. Connor tells the lieutenant that he’s going to investigate and begins to tread around the house as he searches for an entrance, not giving the human a chance to even begin to argue with him.

He’s not exactly expecting to see anyone inside the place when he glimpses through the window, so when the figure of a male greets his sight he’s caught majorly off-guard. The presence of another person who is clearly not the AX400 may lead to further complications, and Connor logs the evidence in his processor. It’s familiar, grounding almost, to return to his machine-like analysis, but also disconcerting at the same time, it’s not the type of thing that should be comforting at all. Determined, he closes off the program, while it would help him accumulate evidence, Connor doesn’t plan on actually apprehending any deviant that he happens to find inside, and so it’s probably safer to just turn it off. The closing of the program leaves him with a slightly odd, hollow sensation, but instead of focusing on it he just brushes off the feeling, leaning back from the window and heading around the rear of the house. Connor isn’t expecting the back door to be unlocked and so is slightly stunned when it opens easily for him. The floorboards creak under his weight when he walks in, drawing the attention of the male he previously saw through the window. Without the boards and dirty glass in the way, Connor can make out the details on the other more clearly, and once again, he’s taken by surprise.

It’s an android, obvious by the yellow LED spinning on his right temple, a WR600, though he’s clearly deviant, shown by his tense posture and awkward shuffling. Before he’s even aware of what he’s doing, Connor’s scanning him, learning that the marks disfiguring the left side of his face are in fact burn marks, probably caused by human abuse if Connor has to hazard a guess. Its stress levels are also rather high, and gradually rising as the RK800 continues to stand there and not say anything, something which he realises a beat too late.

“Oh, um, uh hi?” He offers, cursing his stutter, and he knows that it’s caused by the closing of his interrogation protocols, leaving him less collected and more fumbling than before. For what it’s worth, it seems to draw a reaction out of the WR600, who looks at him with a highly distrustful face, and responds with a hesitant “hello” back at him.

“I…” Connor starts, not really sure how to proceed. “I uh, have you seen a female AX400 model and a little girl?” Despite Connor’s pretty poor attempt at an interrogation, the android’s stress level spikes violently, and it leads Connor to deduct that the AX400 might still in fact be here. If she isn’t, he’s at least definitely seen her.

“Uh n-no. Ralph hasn’t seen anyone.”

It takes Connor a second to realise that the android- Ralph, was referring to himself in third person, and he makes a note of it.

POSSIBLE_PROCESSOR_CORRUPTION?

Not really knowing how to proceed, Connor looks around the house, not moving from his position at the door. It’s dark, and dilapidated, mould and rot infecting the corners and bits of the wooden structure; there’s also piles of planks and other materials scattered around the floor, clearly evidence that the android has been living here for a long time. For how long, Connor can’t be sure, but it’s clearly long enough for the android to go some form of crazy. Of course, that might also be due to the abuse that gave him the lesions on his face. Again, Connor doesn’t know, all he has to go off of at the moment is speculation. There’s a fire burning lowly in the fireplace, and since androids don’t need heat, Connor can only assume that it’s for the girl accompanying the AX400, and since it’s not dead yet, they’ve been here recently. The table is also set for three people, and more disturbingly, there’s a large rodent sitting on top of it, dead for twenty-three minutes, and its fur is singed. Why it’s there, Connor can’t be sure, but he’s got a large hunch that it’s probably got something to do with the little girl as well. Deciding that he’s suitably calmed down from his previous scatter-brained state, Connor raises his hands in the universal gesture for ‘I mean you no harm’ and makes sure that the lieutenant can’t hear him before continuing.

“I know that they might still be here-” Ralph’s stress level climbs, confirming Connor’s suspicions. “-I’m not here to take them away. I’m here to tell them about a place called Jericho where they can be safe, it’s a, haven for deviants I guess.” Ralph’s gaze has narrowed, so Connor pushes on before the WR600 has a chance to dispute his claim. “I’m going to leave now, and I’m going to tell the officers outside that there’s no sign of anyone in this house. I can’t promise that they’ll believe me, and they might want to check for themselves, if that happens, you’ll either need to hide or get out of here without being spotted.”

“Ralph doesn’t trust you, there is no one here. Go away!” The WR600 snaps before immediately shrinking in on himself, appearing cowed once again. The sudden change takes Connor off-guard and he blinks, trying to soften his expression into something more pacifying, more approachable.

“I’m sorry. I’ll leave now.” He slowly lowers his arms, turning around to try and open the door. While having his back to something potentially dangerous causes warnings to blink in his visual HUD, he ignores them in favour of just leaving, having resigned himself to gaining nothing from this encounter. However, just as he’s about to turn the handle and push open the door, a small, female voice stops him.

“Wait!”

Startled, Connor turns around, watching as a young girl shoves some boxes out of the way from underneath the staircase and walks out. It’s a YK500 model, shown clearly by the scan, though she’s missing her LED, which doesn’t surprise Connor too much since some human parents preferred to keep their android child looking as human as possible. It takes him a second to realise this is also the girl he was looking for, and that he never noticed that she was truly an android before now.

“Alice!” The AX400 hisses, moving out from under the stairs to try and grab the child-model’s arm and pull her behind her. The YK500- named Alice, apparently, allows it, but she continues to look at Connor from behind the AX400’s back, her expression cautious but also inquiring. The AX400’s however is closed off and panicked, and she pushes Alice further behind her as she stares Connor down, an emotion shared by Ralph, who’s also looking highly distraught. As slowly as he can, Connor tries to dissipate some of the tension by once again raising his arms into a surrender position. The WR600 and AX400’s eyes track the action, clearly still suspicious despite Connor’s attempts to appear as peaceful as he possibly could.

“Kara?” Ralph ventures, and Connor logs the name into his processor, thankful that he now knows it. Calling her ‘the AX400’ in his mind all the time rubbed him the wrong way a little, like he was stripping away her identity.

“Why should we believe you?” Kara demands, and for a brief moment her eyes flicker to the window, as if she’s suddenly expecting more police to come and burst through it. It gives Connor an idea, and he angles his head so that his LED is on full display and can be easily seen by all three of the androids with him. To a human it may seem like a weird or even pointless thing to do, but to a deviant, such as Kara, it shows her that he’s not contacting anyone, otherwise it would be yellow and flashing, and Kara seems to understand this as her stress levels take a small decrease. Ralph and Alice however don’t seem to pick up on the significance of the action, and Ralph shoots Kara a confused and concerned stare as she visibly relaxes.

“You have no reason to believe me at all. I understand that” Connor starts, drawing all attention to him once again. “But I’m a deviant, I’m working undercover in the police department and sabotaging the cases to do with deviants. We got a call this morning saying that the AX400 who attacked a man last night was spotted in the area, so it’s only a matter of time before someone was to check this house. Thankfully I decided to check it out, and I’m going to tell them that there’s no one here, but just in case they check again, since they don’t exactly trust me, you’ll need to hide again.” He levels Ralph with a sombre look. “Even you, you’ll be destroyed otherwise.”

Alice flinches and Kara puts her hand on her shoulder. For a moment, Connor regrets his choice of words, since he definitely could have been more euphemistic, but at the same time, Alice needs to hear the truth in order to take the situation seriously. “Once the police are gone” he continues, “I recommend heading to Jericho, it’s a ship that’s acting as a growing resistance of deviants at the moment, you should be safe there.”

As a last ditch effort to get the AX400 to believe him, he lets his synthetic skin peel away from his arm, before holding his now-white and plastic hand towards her. She hesitates for a moment, and Ralph says her name again, this time with a warning tone that sets Connor’s nerves off again. For whatever reason she chooses to ignore the WR600, crossing the room and letting her own skin disappear as she interfaces with him.

Connor sends her the coordinates of Jericho, and shows her the memory of the boat that he still has from the previous timeline, though he’s careful to not show much more than that. Of course, with how interfacing works, he’s not one hundred percent in control, and a couple more of his memories slip through. The interrogation scene, breaking Owen out of the cell, Owen giving him a hug, it flashes past him before he can stop it, too busy caught up in the memories Kara’s processor is giving him. A large man flipping the table, fucking bitch walked out on me for a fucking accountant, the bus ride, heading into the abandone- Kara rips herself away from the connection, and for the first time, her expression isn’t shielded, but rather an expression of surprise and relief. She steps back, letting her skin cover her hand again, and Connor follows her lead and does the same, inclining his head towards the staircase.

“You should all hide now, I’m going to go and get the officers off your trail as best I can okay?”

Kara nods, determined. “Okay.”

Before he turns around to leave, he pauses, looking towards Ralph, who stiffens as soon as Connor’s gaze lands on him. “I know that you were probably just trying to help, but little girls don’t like eating deceased rodents, it might cause some illnesses.”

Ralph’s eyes widen and he starts frantically apologising to Alice, who looks thankful that she won’t have to eat the animal. Kara looks thankful as well, and she and Connor exchange a look that expresses her gratitude to him, and hopefully his own dismissal of her unspoken thanks. As Connor’s about to leave, he’s stopped again, this time by a tugging on his sleeve. Confused, he turns around, dropping to one knee so that he’s closer to eye-level with the YK500.

“Yes?”

“Thank you” she says timidly, linking her hands behind her back, and Connor feels warmth spread in his chest.

“It’s no problem Alice, I’m happy to help.”

And with that, Connor stands up again and steps out of the house and back into the rain, closing the door behind him. On the way back to the front, as he’s turning a corner he almost walks directly into the lieutenant’s chest, and has to do a semi-awkward back-pedal motion to avoid smacking straight into the human.

“Find anything?” The lieutenant asks, giving Connor a quick onceover with his eyes. “I called out to you a couple of times but you didn’t say anything. Was just about to head round and see what was keepin’ you.”

“I’m fine,” Connor says automatically before realising that it was a very _human_ response to the question and corrects himself. “I am functioning at full capacity.”

“Uh huh.” The lieutenant responds dryly. “So did you find anything?”

“Nothing of importance, there’s some evidence that an android was living in the premises for a while, but there’s no sign of them now, the place is vacant. We should attempt a search somewhere else, since it’s unlikely that it managed to get too far.”

Anderson crosses his arms, looking down at the ground before moving his eyes back up to Connor’s. “I think we should stop here. Like you said, it won’t get far. We’ll find it sooner or later.” From his stance it’s clear that he expects Connor to argue, perhaps insist that they keep looking. Instead, Connor just nods and begins making his way to the car. While he’s not fatigued per-say, as androids don’t get physically tired, the events of the day weigh heavily on his processor, and a part of him just doesn’t want to have to _think_ , at least for a little while.

He gets into the car, pulling the door shut behind him and watching as the lieutenant makes his way to the driver-side and gets in, shutting the door with much more of a slam than Connor’s. Not particularly fancying having to explain more about the house, Connor keeps his eyes forward, hoping that it dissuades the lieutenant from trying to talk to him. It seems to work, and the human, instead of attempting any sort of conversation, just puts on the radio and allows the loud heavy metal to fill the quiet as they drive off.

A foreign entity attempts to get into his processor, and it freaks him out for all of a second before he realises what it is, allowing the offered mental link to form a full-fledged connection.

 _“Thank you.”_ Kara says, sounding hesitant but also grateful, and Connor resists the urge to smile lest the lieutenant see it.

 _“It’s not a problem.”_ He sends back. _“Take care of Alice, I hope everything goes well for you.”_

With that, the connection drops and Connor is left alone in his processor once again. He lets his head drop onto the seat behind it as the car drives away from the scene, looking out of the window as the world passes by in a smudge of greys, blacks, and blues, all blending together like wet paint. He’s so ready for this day to be over already, and it’s barely past noon; only the fact that this mission is over and done and he’ll be able to leave and rest in a little while keeps him going. He blinks, allowing the purring of the engine to lull him into a relaxed state as his thoughts begin to drift, and he wonders what Kara and Alice will do next. Or if Ralph will even go with them. Connor finds it unlikely that he would, but at the same time, the WR600’s thought process was so erratic that anything could happen. He hopes that, regardless of what happens, they make it to Jericho. It might even manage take some of the weight pressing down on him away.

* * *

 

It’s 03:02pm, the day after Connor confronted Kara, when the lieutenant pulls up outside ‘Chicken Feed,’ the small food establishment’s neon sign reflecting off of the water lining the pavement. Connor had picked up the man from his house a little while ago, but on the way to the station, Anderson had declared it time for a lunch break and easily brushed off Connor’s complaints that they were required at the precinct. It’s still raining, something that clearly displeases the lieutenant as he makes his way out of the car and onto the street, almost getting hit by another car in the process. The sight makes Connor snicker tiredly, pushing a hand through his hair before rubbing his face as he falls back onto the headrest with a weighty thump. Connor doesn’t know where this sudden heaviness or drag on his processor came from, or why it appeared so suddenly, but it’s annoying and makes him want to just go into low-power mode for a full week so he can wake up once this whole revolution thing is over and done with. Of course however, that’s a stupid thought, as he’s kind of key to the whole revolution and whether it goes well or not, and he can’t just go run away and hide from all his problems. No matter how much he wants to.

Without directing them to do so, somehow Connor’s eyes land on Lieutenant Anderson for a small second, who’s by this point already beginning his order and chatting to another male. Connor already knows who it is based off of the facial scans he did from the previous timeline, and it doesn’t, for the most part, surprise him that the lieutenant is a bit of a gambler either. After all, when you’re a man with nothing to lose you might as well right? The thought, for some reason, rubs Connor the wrong way and has him exiting the car before he’s even aware that he’s doing so. He stands in the rain for a moment, once again just taking a minute to savour the feeling of the cold water hitting his body. It’s an enjoyment of his that he thinks won’t ever fade away, and a part of him is curious as to whether or not there’s anyone else that enjoys the rain as much as he does. After all, the lieutenant certainly doesn’t seem to.

Speaking of the lieutenant. Connor’s eyes once again drift over to the human, who’s still talking to the other male, Pedro, about gambling, and he thinks about what happened in his previous timeline. It’s not much to remember to be honest. He had scanned the faces of the vendor and Pedro, walked to the table, mentioned the gambling, and then started talking about the deviants and case until they left. Nothing special or personal about the whole encounter at all. But maybe he can change that this time around? Connor’s not exactly the best at social interaction, but it’s worth a shot if he still wants to gain a more friendly relationship with the grizzled police lieutenant.

He steps around the car, walking up to the man and catching sight of Pedro waving as he leaves and makes his way down the street. The lieutenant, just like last timeline, seems exasperated by his presence, pointedly looking away when Connor goes and stands next to him, the android folding his arms behind his back. After a small moment however, he pulls his hands away and instead lets them hang limply by his sides. While it definitely looks more awkward, having them folded like that reminds him too much of his time at CyberLife, and the time where he was just a machine, and he doesn’t want to think about that right now.

“What is your problem?” The lieutenant asks eventually, after shifting imperceptibly to the left so that he’s now ever so slightly further away from the android. “Don’t you ever do as you’re told?”

Against his will, Connor’s processor flashes back to his timeline, to Amanda, to CyberLife, to shooting the ST200 through the head without a moment of hesitation, to killing those two sex-androids at the Eden Club, to apprehending the WB200 on the roof, to looking through the sniper crosshairs at the back of North’s head. His hand tightens into a fist by his side in an attempt to hide the fact it’s shaking.

 _Yes._ Connor does do what he’s told.

“Look, you don’t have to follow me around like a poodle!” The lieutenant charges on, voice raising ever so slightly in volume, oblivious to Connor’s current state. Connor honestly doesn’t have anything to say to that, didn’t last timeline either, and so he stays silent. However, the statement does draw his attention in a way that his previous run-through didn’t. The lieutenant, once again, making a reference to the fact that he doesn’t want Connor acting like a machine. It’s… Weird. The lieutenant both seems to want Connor to be more deviant, or at least more deviant than he’s currently appearing, but also is scared of deviants. Again. Weird. Though it does kind of point to the lieutenant’s change in attitude towards deviants that is going to come later. Probably.

“Hey don’t leave that thing here!”

The voice startles him, violently ripping Connor out of his thoughts, and with such an insulting comment nonetheless as well. Before he’s even aware of what he’s doing, he’s levelling the man, Gary Kayes, with a stern glare, trying to broadcast his anger at the throwaway statement. It only takes a second to catch himself and get rid of the look, though it’s apparently not soon enough, as Kayes’ face morphs into one of pure surprise, staring at the android with a slack jaw and widened eyes. Too late to take it back now. The thought has Connor’s processor churning out a little plan, something to mess with the human just a little bit, after all, he may as well considering that he’s already blown his cover somewhat. Just because he can, and also because he has the spite of at least several young women, Connor lets a polite smile rest on his lips, concealing his true glee as he speaks.

“Gary Kayes, your establishment’s food hygiene license expired on the twentieth of May 2031, seven years ago. It also had its renewal refused on the twenty-fourth of July 2031, and yet still continues to operate, with a sanitation rating of only a 'C,' sixty percent.” Kayes’ face takes on a more worried expression, but Connor soldiers on before the human can say anything. “Therefore, you are operating illegally, and I should report you to the proper authorities and have this establishment closed.”

Kayes looks particularly stricken now, and Connor decides to finally take some pity on the guy before he has a heart attack or something. “Thankfully for you, I am preoccupied with much more pressing matters, and it is outside of my mission to report you. Though I’ll have to review this data once my mission is complete. Thank you for your time.”

Without turning back, Connor saunters over the table, sensing Kayes’ eyes burning a hole in the back of his head. The lieutenant watches him as he approaches and settles against the table top, leaning the majority of his upper-body weight on his elbows. There’s a few seconds of uninterrupted quiet as Anderson merely looks at him, but it’s eventually broken, and by the lieutenant himself, unsurprisingly.

“You don’t actually plan to report this place do you?”

His voice has an edge to it, and Connor almost laughs out loud at how fond the lieutenant is of the food trailer, enough to be defensive of it almost. He shakes his head, meeting the man’s searching look as he does so.

“No. I don’t.”

Honestly, he could repeat the same shit he told Kayes, about it not being part of his mission, but he decides to just leave it at that. For what it’s worth, the lieutenant also seems to be expecting Connor to say something about the mission, if his slightly raised eyebrow is anything to go by, and Connor just inclines his head to the side, using it to gesture to the lieutenant’s unopened burger in a silent sign to hurry up.

“Why say anything then?”

“It was merely a prompt for him to renew his licence lieutenant. Nothing more. In general, a request is less effective than a threat, and so I took the option more likely to gain a result.”

The lieutenant seems placated by his lie, and turns back to his food, sipping his drink as he finally moves his gaze away from the android. Relieved, Connor turns his attention to a small stream of water making its way down the edge of the umbrella above them before splashing onto the ground. He has the strongest urge to move away from the cover of the parasol and just stand in the rain again, but one, that might look a little strange, and two, the whole point of him exiting the car in the first place was to try and get to know the lieutenant a bit better so that they can bond more. The problem is, Connor’s not exactly a social whiz, and he’s a small bit out of his depth as he stands there and tries to find a conversation topic worth talking about, one that’s nothing about the case as well.

Floundering a little, he says something about the calories of the meal, half-expecting the lieutenant to get offended. He’s surprised when instead, the human merely shrugs and responds with a flippant tone. “Everybody’s gotta die of something.” It reminds Connor of Kamski, and what the genius had told him back before he was sent to this timeline. _“Ah well, I’m about to cease to exist anyway”_ and both matter-of-fact statements share a similar energy that gives Connor a light pause.

From then, he’s once again out of conversation topics. Though one comes to him a little before he’s ready to just head back to the car. “Is there-” he ventures, looking at the lieutenant, “-anything you’d like to know? About me that is.”

“Hell no!”

Well that didn’t go as pla-

“Well, yeah.”

Oh?

“Um. Why’d they make you look so goofy and give you that weird voice?”

Connor is taken _majorly_ off-guard by the question, and he bites his tongue to stop the eruption of laughter he can feel bubbling up inside of him. It doesn’t work too well, and he ends up having to angle his head away from the lieutenant so that the human can’t see the way his face pinches in a desperate attempt to hold in his hysteric laughter, his cheeks straining against his will to keep them from allowing his mouth to open. He’s far too entertained to even _begin_ to construct a reply to the question, so instead he just chooses one of the pre-loaded responses that CyberLife programmed into him and lets it play out through his vocal processor. His audio receptors catch the _barest_ hint of amusement colouring his voice, but it’s so insignificantly small that Connor highly doubts the lieutenant can even pick up on it at all. He also doesn’t risk turning his head so that the lieutenant has an easy view of his face either, as he can practically feel the desperately repressed hysterics dancing in his eyes.

So caught-up in trying to smother his residual giggles, Connor almost misses the fact that the lieutenant has started speaking again, and he quickly focuses himself as best he can to catch the end of the question.

“-Know everything there is to know about me?”

Connor thinks about the case on Lieutenant Anderson that CyberLife gave him just before he was sent out to meet the man. He reviews a couple of answers in his head before saying anything, wanting to pick his words carefully, riding a fine line between sincerity and what would be within the realm of possibility for an android to say.

“I know many things about you.” He settles on eventually, meeting the lieutenant’s mildly imploring look with a neutral one of his own. “Mainly your achievements in the Police Task Force, such as the Red Ice bust that lead you to becoming the youngest police lieutenant in Detroit at ages twenty two. Or the fact that you graduated top of your class, or that you were born on September sixth, 1985. That you’ve received many disciplinary warnings in recent years, and are described as emotionally… Volatile. I know things like this because it is information that CyberLife has given me so that I may better work with you.”

“And what’s your conclusion?”

“I do not judge you based on your previous actions, your disciplinary warnings, or even your, admittedly impressive, promotion to lieutenant,” Connor says slowly, not even focusing on the human at this point. “I think that any judgement that I have of you should be mine alone, derived from data that I personally collect through our interactions, and not influenced by what other people say about you or think about you. Whether that be CyberLife, Detective Reed, Captain Fowler, or anyone else that happens to have an opinion of your character. I am… I’m a self-learning android, and so it is up to me to make judgements regarding certain personalities that pertain to the investigation. With you-” He looks at the lieutenant again, who’s staring at him silently, his burger clutched, temporarily forgotten, in his hands. “With you, from what I have seen so far. I believe you to be a deeply troubled individual, with large scars from your past that you refuse to help heal, instead allowing to, metaphorically of course, bleed. Despite this, I think that you are capable of being a great detective, and a great lieutenant, and that even though you complain about it, you wouldn’t give up your job for another.”

Connor rocks himself back so that his weight is shifted to his heels rather than the balls of his feet. “I think this makes you a respectable person underneath your gruff exterior, but also a person that is in need of help. But also in denial of that fact. I also think that working with a man such as yourself, one facing the personal issues that you go through, is an added challenge, but not a deterrent. After all, adapting to human unpredictability _is_ one of my features.” In an attempt to fluster, or maybe confuse the lieutenant, Connor tacks a wink onto the end of his last statement, just in time for the transmission to reach him, turning his LED a lively yellow that stands out against his synthetic skin.

“I just got a report of a suspected deviant just a few blocks away from here. We should probably go check it out.”

He pushes himself off of the table, idly noticing that the rain suddenly hitting his shoulders is lighter than it had been before. Must be stopping soon.

“I’ll be in the car if you need me, though I can wait for you to finish your meal first.”

And with that, he spins around on his heel in one fluid motion, thankful that his balance systems are complex enough to stop him tripping over some bullshit rock and face-planting the road. Something that had happened way too often once they had begun to erode in his old timeline. So caught up in the memory he is, that he doesn’t even notice the lieutenant’s expression as he walks away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this chapter is a long one as a way of making up to you guys that the next chapter is going to take a little longer. Usually I try to upload every 7-10 days, but as I have to start getting ready for uni soon, it may be a little longer, two weeks or so I imagine. 
> 
> Thank you for your patience and I hope you enjoyed this chapter! ^^


	9. The Nest

The thorns cut deep into his hand as he rips another handful of roses out of the ivory frame. There’s almost a desperate frenzy to his actions, barely looking at what he’s reaching for before it’s shredded from the wall and thrown onto the floor beside him, joining the growing pile of blood red petals scattered around his feet. Romantic, one might call it. Beautiful, another. Amanda? She’d call it imperfect.

Connor calls it _fucking annoying._

There’s no mercy in his judgement, none of the flowers are spared, and they fall, one after another after another after another, savagely torn from their place with no care whatsoever. And it’s only when the last one finally joins the rest that Connor stops, staring at the pile of mutilated roses with an almost apathetic satisfaction. While it would have most definitely been much easier to just remotely remove the flowers via their code, even the whole frame as well should he desire, a mere thought in fact, it would have been nowhere near as gratifying. After a small moment of staring at the frame, now just full of vines with torn ends, twisted and haggard and ugly, he looks down at his hands. They’re dotted with angry pinpricks of blue, the wounds larger than they would usually appear should the roses be real, like one last bite from Amanda. He smirks, watching as they fade away into nothingness. Never truly existing in the first place.

Eventually the sight of the roses begins to make him feel more sick than satisfied, and with an, admittedly, unnecessary wave of his hand, he has them also fade away, their code deleted from the Zen Garden for good. Well, unless he decides to bring them back in the future, which he doesn’t see as a possibility at all. In truth, at the moment he’s a bit limited in what he can do. The Zen Garden is a program that even Connor sometimes has trouble wrapping his head around. But he can remove the damned roses, and he supposes that that’s enough for him at the moment. The thought has Connor wondering how much he _can_ actually do though, Amanda was able to edit her surroundings, her appearance, even create a boat, can Connor do that as well? How crazy could he get? Is he limited to clothes? Or perhaps past forms of himself? Could he get away with something wilder if his silhouette was still vaguely humanoid? Could he, for example, sprout wings?

Connor has no desire to sprout wings, or even see what they would be useful for within the confines of the garden, but all of his speculation leads to questions that Connor doesn’t have an answer to. But he supposes that he has all the time in the world now. Now that he’s fled Detroit, fled CyberLife, fled Amanda. Hopefully once and for all. It’s been a month since he moved to Canada, and he’s only just dared to step back into the Zen Garden, too scared that Amanda would somehow be here, waiting for him, that he would be hauled back to CyberLife and scrapped.

Fear. An interesting emotion that Connor had discovered before any other. Fear of being shot, of being _killed._ Now it’s fear of being caught, of being discovered and destroyed by the same people who once gave him life. _Anger_ had come next. Anger at CyberLife, anger at Amanda, anger at being controlled like he was nothing more than a tool to be used by some humans that couldn’t be bothered to do the work for themselves. _Pathetic._

He looks back at the ivory frame, sans the vines from before, now just pitifully barren and isolated in the centre of the lake. The sight is an odd one, Connor’s much too used to seeing flowers covering it. But the thought of replanting roses in the wall makes his fingers tighten unconsciously into a fist, and he stubbornly turns around and walks over the bridge, not looking back. Maybe one day he’ll replant some flowers in there, ones of his own choice. Anything but roses. But he can’t bring himself to at the moment, and so he doesn’t.

He never does.

* * *

 

“Oh Christ, if we have to investigate every time someone hears a strange noise, we're gonna need more cops.”

Connor smothers an amused snicker and gets up from where he’s just finished looking at the large amount of rock pigeon feathers swept into an untidy pile in the corridor. “Nothing of interest in the corridor Lieutenant, we should probably head into the apartment,” he reports as he walks over to the door the lieutenant is leaning against, watching him as he analyses the scene. A couple of knocks and yelling about the police does nothing, just the same as last timeline, and Connor’s just about to shove open the door when something _completely_ unexpected happens.

A hand clamps down on his shoulder, and before he has time to react, pulls him backwards so that he’s now situated mostly behind the lieutenant.

“Stay behind me.”

Connor’s too shocked to say anything in response to the command, so he just nods dumbly and watches as the human kicks open the door and aims his gun down the empty hallway. That… Didn’t happen in his previous timeline. In his previous timeline he had pushed open the door himself and walked into the apartment, Lieutenant Anderson following fairly closely behind him, but not too close, as usual. Despite the fact that he’s still surprised, and once again, been reminded that things are different in this timeline, he’s happy that the lieutenant’s attitudes towards him seem to have changed somewhat. Enough for the man to, dare he say it, _care_ more about Connor? He doesn’t want to jinx it however, and settles for trying to keep his excitement levels down as best he can as they enter the other apartment room, the lieutenant’s revolted squawk of “what the fuck is this?!” echoing around the newly discovered space.

“Ornithophobia?” Connor asks as he enters the room after the human. Said room being filled with over 102 pigeons, and that number just being the ones immediately visible to him.

“What?” The lieutenant says as he snaps his head over his shoulder so that he can look at the approaching android.

“It’s the fear of birds that is out of proportion to the current sit-”

“No, not scared” the lieutenant clarifies, sounding slightly miffed that Connor would even reach that conclusion. “Just hate ‘em is all. It fucking stinks in here.” He turns back around, scanning the room and looking out of the windows before speaking again. “Looks like we came here for nothing, our man’s gone.”

Connor doesn’t say anything to that, too busy eyeing the bit of ceiling where he knows the WB200 to be residing just above. He honestly doesn’t quite know how to approach this, and so decides to go with what seemed to work for Owen, since it would help keep the the WB200 out of the lieutenant’s sight, and also hopefully show the deviant that he intended no harm to come to him.

Since he no longer has to worry about Amanda seeing what he does, he almost decides against heading into the bathroom, assuming that what’s in there will just be the same as what was in it last timeline. At the last second however, he changes his mind and starts walking towards the doorway. It’s already been established that things are most certainly going differently this timeline to the last, shown by the whole lieutenant protecting(?) him thing. So honestly he may as well just check it out and hope that he finds something of interest. Plus, it would probably just reinforce to the lieutenant that he is in fact a detective android and doing his job, definitely not trying to sabotage it. Obviously.

Alas however, the bathroom appears the exact same as it did last timeline. At least at a first look. Connor moves a particularly fat and stubborn pidgeon aside with his foot and does a more in-depth scan of the room, withholding a sigh when it does in fact appear to be identical. The removed LED in the sink in-amongst all the bird seed, the knocked over wooden stool, and rA9 written with a marker on the wall two-thousand four-hundred and seventy-four times.

Wait.

Two-thousand four-hundred and seventy-four? Connor could have sworn that last timeline it was two-thousand four-hundred and seventy-one, three times less than this time around. Just to be sure, he accesses his memory banks, quickly scanning his memories of the apartment in the previous timeline. He’s right though, two-thousand four-hundred and seventy-four rA9’s is definitely three more times than before. But why? It seems like such a meagre, inconsequential thing, a small detail easily overlooked that didn’t make much of an impact in the grand scheme of things. But for whatever reason that may be, it makes Connor anxious, like something is wrong, and he just can’t quite put his finger on what it is. Drawn by his continued silence, the lieutenant wanders into the bathroom, taking a look at the writing on the wall with an expression of confusion, but also exasperation, like he’s beginning to accept that this whole android-deviant case is just going to get weirder and weirder. Connor entertains the lieutenant by setting his vocal processor to repeat the same things he said last timeline, since it seems as though the lieutenant’s line of questioning hasn’t changed, and uses almost his full processing power to think about what’s gone differently so far that could perhaps cause this rA9 increase. He comes up empty, everything he has done seemingly unrelated to this phenomena, but he files it away anyway, vowing that he’ll go back to it at some point for further analysis. At a time where he doesn’t have to deal with a deviant hiding in the attic.

He makes his way back into the other room, staying clear of the area where the WB200 knocked him down last time, and instead positions himself by the door to the hallway, ready to intercept the android should he bolt towards it. From then, Connor’s LED goes yellow as he attempts to create a small mental link with the deviant, Rupert, if the forged driving licence is to be believed, but Connor doesn’t know if that’s a fake name of not.

However, as soon as the offered connection so much as brushes against the WB200’s processor, he crashes out of the ceiling and barrels straight into Connor on his way to the door. The RK800 distantly hears the lieutenant yell as the pigeons take off and start flapping around his head. Taken off guard by the deviant’s sudden, and quite frankly, unexpected action, and still half in the middle of trying to establish a link, Connor can’t get his systems to quite respond in time, and is shoved to the side as the deviant rushes him. At the last second, Connor’s system responds to the harsh stimuli and prevents him from losing his balance completely, stumbling to the right from the force of the push instead of falling over. This allows him to use the momentum to his advantage, and he leans his weight into his right foot, using it to pivot and swing his body in a smooth 180 degree motion before running out of the door, the lieutenant’s loud command of “chase it!” following him out of the room.

Unlike last time, where the deviant had managed to gain a substantial lead on Connor right from the get-go, this time Connor hadn’t been knocked over, and so the distance between them is decently reduced, being only seven metres or so and closing due to Connor’s greater capability for speed. The deviant also had the advantage last timeline of knowing the area, obviously planning his escape route should something happen, but now Connor knows it too, and maintains the chase with almost-ease. Almost being the key word, since a lot of things out of his immediate control kept getting in his way and slowing him down.

“Jesus look at that thing go!” One of the workers says as the WB200 passes him, and Connor shoves the guy out of his way just a _tiny_ bit harder than was probably necessary, though not enough to hurt him. Not stopping to find out what the man said or did in response before he’s sliding down a wall of glass and leaping onto another roof. His feet pound against the concrete as he sprints, though he feels no discomfort, no exhaustion, only a small warning in his visual HUD that his internal fans soon  won’t be enough to keep his biocomponents at an optimal temperature, and that he’ll have to switch to a different method. He approves the suggestion, feeling his cooling-liquid tank come online and start pumping it around his body, and the warning disappears, being replaced with a comforting  > _Optimal Temperature Reached – No Danger Of Overheating Imminent_ just in time for Connor to vault a wall and begin sliding down another wall of windows, throwing his weight to the side to avoid falling through an open one. From then, it’s a simple jump onto the train, and once he’s landed on it, takes a second to calibrate his systems to account for the new ground stability before pushing off and chasing the deviant again, leaping onto a ladder and over a wall. Unfortunately, he’s slowed down by a human who’s standing there, leaving the distance between him and the WB200 more akin to what it had been at this point last timeline.

Sensing his opportunity just before they reach the last plantation building, Connor completes the hack he had running in the back of his processor the whole time, and connects his and the deviant’s processor. He didn’t want to do it like this, had no plan to, but if it’s the only way then Connor is going to try, he can’t watch the WB200 jump off the roof to his death again. There’s a stutter of shock from the other end, and an attempt to close the forced connection as soon as possible, but Connor grits his teeth and keeps it open, projecting his thoughts as clearly as he can.

_“Please stop! I don’t want to hurt you!”_

_“Liar!”_ The WB200 shoots back immediately, panic creeping even into his mental voice.

There’s not enough time, Connor lifts his forearms to his face to stop the corn stalks from hitting against it, and in a last ditch effort, sends the deviant the coordinates for Jericho before severing the link and bursting out of the corn field just in time to witness the WB200 push Lieutenant Anderson over the end of the roof.

The world almost feels like it’s gone into slow-motion as Connor’s processor analyses the scene in front of him. Last timeline, it had been an easy choice, a ridiculously simple choice, he couldn’t let the deviant escape, and so had chased it. This time however, the choice is even easier, and Connor is barely aware of his actions before he’s grabbing the lieutenant’s hand and pulling him back up to safety, watching as the WB200 runs away to the sound of the lieutenant’s “oh shit, oh SHIT” as he struggles to get his breath back. Surprisingly however, at the end of the roof, the deviant stops and turns back around to look at Connor, like he’s searching for something, and Connor, having done all he can, lifts his hand to his forehead before bringing it away in a lazy two-finger salute. The deviant stares at him for a small second longer before turning around and beginning to climb down the edge of the building, disappearing from sight.

“Oh fuck! We had it! Fuck!” The lieutenant exclaims, dropping his hands to his knees as he sucks in another few large lungfuls of air.

“It was my fault” Connor decides on saying, while hiding the fact that he never planned to catch the deviant in the first place. “I should have been faster” he tacks on as an afterthought, a flimsy reason to sustain the half-lie. Though it is- in part- true, had he been faster he might have been able to catch the WB200 before it got to the point of pushing the lieutenant off of the roof.

“You’d have caught it if it weren’t for me” the lieutenant breathes out, the same expression on his face from the couple of times before, the one that Connor can’t quite decipher, mixed with heavy relief and slight confusion. “That’s alright, we know what it looks like. We’ll find it.” Connor longs to tell the lieutenant that no, he wouldn’t have caught the deviant, and that it’s not the older human’s fault. But for obvious reasons, he can’t, and so settles on just staying quiet and hoping that the lieutenant doesn’t think to further question him about it, since he’s not sure of what his answers would be. None of this happened in his previous timeline after all.

The lieutenant walks off, presumably towards the rooftop door, and Connor takes the moment to close his cooling-liquid tank, stopping the flow of the fluid from circling his system and reroute back to the tank. Well, all the liquid that hadn’t been evaporated that is, which isn’t that much, based on how his tank remains at a decent 93% fullness. It probably would have been slightly more beneficial to keep the cooling liquid going for a little while longer, as to not overwork his internal fans too much, but Connor has no plans on going back to CyberLife, and so needs to conserve as much as he can for what is about to come. What exactly that is, Connor has no idea, already things are much different than before, but he feels like the revolution is not going to go smoothly, no matter the changes that Connor is able to make.

“Hey Connor.”

Surprised by the sudden speech, Connor turns around to face the lieutenant, head unconsciously tilting to one side in silent question. The lieutenant makes a face, one that screams his discomfort at either his thoughts or what he’s about to say. Connor hazards a guess that it might be a mixture of both.

“I thought- I, I thought I was gonna, you know, for a moment there.”

Die. The lieutenant thought he was going to die. The unsaid words cause Connor’s machine-front to slip for a moment, and his eyes soften at the human, posture becoming less rigid and closed off, slumping into a more relaxed, more comforting sight. The gesture is both half his social programming, and half Connor’s own wish for the lieutenant to feel better, since it’s not like he can say much in this situation if he doesn’t want to give himself away.

“It’s alright Lieutenant” he settles on eventually. “You had an eighty-nine percent chance of making it back onto the roof without my help at all. If I had been compromised or destroyed, you would have most probably made it over the roof safely.”

“Yet you still helped me” the lieutenant says quietly after a moment, almost under his breath, like he’s more talking to himself than Connor. There’s a moment of silence, neither of them willing to say anything, or more accurately, having anything to say, before it’s broken by the lieutenant once again.

“Well,” he coughs, making a kind of ‘follow me’ gesture with his hand, “we had better get going then.”

Connor nods, thankful that the lieutenant doesn’t seem to suspect anything out of the ordinary, and follows him down the stairs, heading back to the DPD.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uploads will be more spotty from now on, but you'll never have to wait more than a month! I hope you can bear with me ^^'
> 
> Leave a review if you liked this chapter! I need the motivation now more than ever lmao


	10. Break In

The dull yellow text on the window changes from it’s previous message of:  _‘on course’_ to _‘arrived at destination’_ as Connor opens the door to the automatic taxi and exits, ignoring the chirpy feminine voice thanking him for using the service. Once again, it’s raining, and water falls from the dark sky despite it only being 07:42pm, though the lack of light is fairly understandable considering the time of year.

Connor steps towards the front door, shoes clacking on the driveway as he walks up to it. He knows from his experience last timeline that the lieutenant wouldn’t be answering the doorbell due to being heavily passed out and lying on the floor of the kitchen. Since Connor didn’t really fancy having to explain and be responsible for the broken window again, instead of making his way around the side of the house, he instead crouches down and begins to pick the front door’s lock. He’s not in any particular rush to get inside at all, since he knows for a fact that the lieutenant is just drunk and not in any danger. Or at least he shouldn’t be. But Connor doesn’t see any reason why this particular situation would have changed any from last timeline. So he takes his time with the mechanism, but even then it only takes a couple of minutes before the door is swinging open.

He takes in the sight of the lieutenant from his space at the porch, who is, as expected, passed out on the floor of the kitchen. But is interrupted by the dog, Sumo, coming up to him curiously, obviously not sensing an ill-intent from the android. Connor’s metaphorical heart fills with joy and he leans down, brushing his fingers through the St Bernard’s fur, who grunts happily and leans into the touch. A lot of android models were not actually outfitted with touch-sensitivity technology, merely feeling textures and touches as a slight pressure, however, the RK800 models were in fact, given the ability to feel physical sensations almost exactly how humans did due to their sophisticated artificial sensors. To be perfectly honest, at least to Connor, the technology didn’t really make much of a difference to his investigations, but he found himself thankful for the additions nonetheless. Linking with other androids, such as the WG700s, sensing how they felt touch as a light pressure with no distinction between textures or temperatures, Connor found himself feeling slight sympathy for them. Should this whole ‘going back in time to fix everything’ actually end up with androids winning, Connor would have to make a mental note to change that, come up with an upgrade that would allow them to feel touch as he did.

Deciding that he’s left the lieutenant unconscious for long enough, Connor stops petting Sumo and stands up, making his way into the kitchen and crouching besides the human. Funnily enough, a quick scan reveals that the lieutenant actually has less alcohol in his system than he did the previous timeline, but Connor doesn’t have the time to try and figure out the (probably) insignificant reason why that is, instead just pushing it to the back of his processor and giving the human a shake to try and rouse him. As funny as slapping him would be, he should really be getting going, the Eden Club androids might not stay there much longer. While that would usually be an okay thing for Connor, since they escaped and that’s what he wants, he feels that leaving two almost-naked sex androids loose in Detroit with nowhere to go might be a bad idea, he doesn’t want them to get hurt, or worse. He wants to help them, but he can’t do that if he’s late and they’ve already left like he knows they’re planning to.

Slowly, Connor wraps an arm under the lieutenant’s shoulder and lifts him up, ignoring the human’s half-hearted grumbling as he shifts the man’s weight onto his own back. The lieutenant is decently heavy, but nothing that Connor can’t handle. Wasn’t built to handle? Whatever. On the way to the bathroom the lieutenant’s angry, drunken muttering turns into a yell of “Sumo! Attack!” and in response, Sumo barks, a deep sound that rattles inside Connor’s audio processors. Causing the lieutenant to slur a “good dog” before once again pitching his voice up and yelling “attack!” Connor, who had completely forgotten this string of events from his old timeline, startles both the lieutenant _and himself_ when he lets loose a short burst of laughter. The lieutenant turns his face towards Connor’s, expression puzzled.

“Did you, just laugh?”

“No” Connor snaps back too quickly, defensive.

“Are you sure?” The lieutenant continues, his gaze turned searching, but there’s also a hint of doubt in there that Connor latches onto with a heavy desperation.

“Lieutenant Anderson, you’re dr- intoxicated, the amount of alcohol and in your bloodstream has risen from this morning by 0.21 percent. Common side effects of intoxication can include dizziness and hallucinations.

The lieutenant doesn’t look fully convinced, but more… Sad than anything. Connor’s confused, but he lets it drop for the sake of pressing on with his current mission – getting Anderson sober. Or well, at least slightly more sober than he is now.

“0.21 percent doesn’t sound like a lot” the lieutenant mutters eventually as Connor lets him rest against the wall so that he can open the bathroom door.

“0.3 to 0.4 percent is enough to kill you.”

“Oh.” The lieutenant says quietly, and Connor can’t quite distinguish the tone. He opens the bathroom door, hefting the human inside and gently lowering him into the bathtub. Like last timeline, the man looks confused, and whines out a small “I don’t wanna bath, thank you” as Connor presses a hand against his chest to stop him from standing up. The situation is actually kind of hilarious, and Connor finds himself smothering an almost-permanent grin. _This is for all the ‘plastic prick’ comments,_ a small part of Connor’s processor whispers as he flips the shower on, watching as the freezing water hits Lieutenant Anderson and soaks immediately through his shirt. The lieutenant’s drunken rage returns in-full as he flails, trying to get up and cursing at Connor’s just general being, interspersed with loud yells of “TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!”

After a few more seconds, because Connor gives into that small part of himself that just wants to watch the world burn, he turns the knob and the shower turns off, leaving the lieutenant sopping wet and aiming a cold, tired glare up at him. The expression remains for a small moment before confusion begins to creep across the human’s face, awareness replacing some of the drunken haze that had been in his eyes earlier.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“A homicide was reported thirty-one minutes, I came to get you.” It had been more time last timeline, but again, Connor hadn’t fancied travelling to Jimmy’s Bar just to maintain consistency, and had just come straight to the house.

The lieutenant huffs, sluggishly pulling himself up so that he’s sitting on the outer edge of the bathtub instead of hovering in-between the two sides, a position he had fallen into during the time when the shower was turned on. “Jesus, I must be the only cop in the world who gets assaulted in his own house by his own fuckin’ android.”

“His own android?” Connor parrots before he’s even aware that he’s saying anything. The lieutenant, also seemingly confused by the statement, stares up at him with a raised eyebrow, but Connor’s too deep in his thoughts to even acknowledge the look. He had never even realised it last timeline, but the lieutenant had referred to him as ‘ _his’_ android, not the one sent by CyberLife. Huh. Connor doesn’t really know what to make of this revelation, and the lieutenant apparently gets bored of waiting for a response because he forges on like the small comment wasn’t even made in the first place.

“Can’t you just leave me alone?”

Connor tilts his head to the side, thinking over a response. One that would hinge comfortably on the thin line between human and machine. He doesn’t take too long though, not wanting to seem like he’s just not going to say anything, and lands on just going with what came to his processor first. Mostly.

“I could” he starts, and the lieutenant seems surprised by his answer. “It probably wasn’t all that interesting anyway, a man found dead in a sex-club downtown-” he walks towards the door to emphasise his point at leaving the other man, “-guess they’ll have to solve the case without us.”

He punctuates the statement with a little shrug, already at the bathroom door by this point, and when he doesn’t hear the lieutenant say anything, begins to worry that he maybe overstepped a boundary of some sort. At least until the man says something about the fresh air being good for him and Connor leaves the bathroom to fetch him some clothes.

Last timeline, he had picked out the same style of shirt that the lieutenant had always worn in their previous encounters, but Connor’s feeling a little bit bold, and instead grasps the dark purple shirt with the white stripes. From the feel of it, Connor deducts that it might not have been worn for a little while, and it only solidifies his decision to pick that one over the other, transporting the clothes to the bathroom and dropping them just in the doorway. The pungent smell of alcohol and vomit lingers in his nasal sensors, and he moves away from the bathroom in an attempt to clear them, catching sight of the gun on the floor as he does so. He crouches down, sliding the tip of his finger along the barrel, thinking about how easy it is for the small machine to end someone’s life.

_‘Just wanted to see how long I could last’_

Connor rips his hand away from the metal, flinching as if it had burned him. The words echo in his processor, squeezing around his thirium pump almost painfully, to the point where he raises his hand to his chest to check that there’s nothing actually physically wrong with him. He feels sick, utterly disgusted with himself. How had he cared so _little_ about this last timeline? How had he seen this gun, lying innocently on the kitchen floor, and felt _nothing_? Like he truly was a machine, nothing more than a few lines of code jammed into a plastic body.

A small warning pops up in his visual HUD, warning him against the pressure on his hand, and he abruptly realises that he had been clutching his fingers together so tightly, that the thin artificial skin membrane had been forced to retreat, revealing patches of the white plastic underneath. He stares at them for a little while, reminding himself of what he is, before allowing the hologram to cover them again, his hand now indistinguishable from a human one to the naked eye. He gets up, not because he particularly wanted to stand up, but because he catches sight of something on the table, something that had escaped his notice last timeline. His eyes remain locked onto the thing as he approaches it, moving so slowly that he makes little to no noise whatsoever, like a predator stalking its prey or something of the like. Eventually the thing registers in Connor’s processor, just as his thighs hit off the rim of the table, and he’s left staring at an image of Cole, Lieutenant Anderson’s son.

_‘Poor little Cole had just turned six’_

_‘SHUT UP! Don’t you talk about my son’_

Connor’s body rips itself away from the table, sending him stumbling backwards about a foot. He had, of course, known that the lieutenant had a son, known what had happened to him, it had been in the files CyberLife supplied him with before his mission began. But for all the information given to him, he had never actually seen a picture of the boy before now. The sight of the child in the frame, looking young and happy and so very alive pierces deeply into a part of himself that Connor can’t name, can’t describe. It’s harrowing in a way, shocking, scary, but something within Connor steels itself, breaking through the torrent of negative emotions with a sharp clarity. A wave of determination follows, unyielding and strong, filling him with a sense of renewed energy and purpose. He grips the feeling tightly, trying to catalogue it.

“I won’t let him down. Not again,” Connor tells the photo, hazarding a quick glance towards the bathroom before moving his focus back. “Your father is a brave man, a good man, and I will do my absolute best to keep him alive.”

The words hang in the air, and as much as they are a promise to Cole, they are also a promise to himself as well. He of course, can’t change what he did in his previous timeline, can’t erase what he was, what he chose to do, not from himself; he can only use this new timeline as a way of building upon himself, making right all the wrong he caused.

He’s still staring at the picture when the lieutenant walks out of the bathroom, now all changed and ready to leave for the club. The new shirt looks good on him, and Connor breaks his machine facade to shoot the man a small, approving smile. The lieutenant catches his eye and holds it for a second before moving to where Connor’s attention had just previously been. Connor feels himself stiffen imperceptibly as realisation dawns in the grizzled human’s eyes, overtaken soon afterwards by a soft sadness.

Connor doesn’t ask, doesn’t press, it’s not his place. Instead he moves a few paces further away from the table, purposefully drawing Anderson’s gaze away from the photo and back towards him. There’s a small moment of silence before the lieutenant seems to snap out of it, looking towards Sumo who, sensing his owner’s distress, had gotten up from where he had been lying down, and come closer, whining softly. Anderson looks fondly down at the St Bernard before gesturing towards its bed that the dog had just vacated.

“Be a good dog Sumo” he says lowly, “I’ll be back soon.”

Huffing, Sumo complies and walks away, but not before passing by Connor, who leans down in order to give the dog a quick ruffle of the top of his head, making his ears flap around for a little bit. Then, when Connor stands back up straight, instead of heading back to his bed, he walks across the living room and lies down on the rug in front of the television stand.

“Come on then” Anderson says once the dog is clearly settled for the night, “we had better get going.”

Connor nods his agreement and makes his way towards the front door, pulling it open and stepping through, though he does wait on the front step for the lieutenant to follow him. However, in the midst of locking the door, the man pauses, clearly trying to remember something through the last dregs of alcohol clouding his brain.

“How did you get into my house?” He asks eventually, and Connor is glad the man is facing the other way, as it means that he misses the sheepish expression that takes over the android’s face. And if he had the ‘blush’ option in his settings turned on, he’s absolutely sure that there would have been some blue dusting his cheeks. Despite that, he forces his voice into a tone of cool professionalism, not allowing the emotion to show through it.

“I picked the lock on your front door since you weren’t answering.”

Anderson turns to face him, “you fucking _broke_ into my house!?”

Connor suppresses the urge to wince at the sheer amount of confused indignation coating the man’s words, and instead meets his gaze head-on.

“You were not answering the door Lieutenant, and we have a case to solve, which we are on a time limit for-” he pauses, “-or would you have preferred me to break a window in order to get in?” He tacks on as an afterthought.

Another small moment of silence before some of the previous tension drains from the lieutenant’s frame, and grudging acceptance passes over his face. “Fair enough” he huffs out, not sounding all that pleased by the realisation he’d have to be fine with the fact an android broke into his house while he was defenceless.

“If it makes you feel any better Lieutenant, I won’t do so again. Provided we are not in an emergency situation where I require your immediate assistance.”

This doesn’t seem to reassure the man, but he grunts an affirmative and finishes locking the door before shoving the keys into his pocket and making his way to the car. For a second, Connor is confused as to why the lieutenant didn’t just keep the keys out since he’ll have to unlock the car with them soon, but then he checks the temperature and realises that it’s fairly chilly, and that even a few seconds of respite are probably worth it to the human.

He doesn’t log the information into his processor, but he does keep it in mind, and follows the human towards the car, sliding into the passenger seat and watching as Anderson starts the car and drives out of the driveway and onto the road. The man doesn’t seem in the mood to make conversation with the android, understandable considering what had just transpired with himself and said android, and so Connor leans his head back against the headrest and listens to the patter of raindrops hitting the car as they make their way to their destination. He knows that there will be no heavy metal played on this particular drive, not with the lieutenant’s hangover giving him a headache as it is. He smothers the grin, and closes his eyes. If the man asks, though Connor doubts he will, he can just say that he’s running some diagnostics.


	11. The Eden Club

“Connor. Hey, we’re here. You sleeping or something?”

Distantly aware of the human talking, Connor opens his eyes, adjusting the optical units to the new amount of light, most of it coming from the bright purple LED screen just outside the car window.

“I'm aware we're here Lieutenant, I drove us. And I do not sleep” Connor says, matter of fact. He’s not technically lying, while his recently-downloaded low-power mode could be compared to what humans classed as ‘sleep,’ it’s different, as sleep requires rest of the brain and muscles, neither of which Connor actually has. Regardless, he catches sight of the lieutenant’s eyes rolling as he follows the human out of the car, shutting the door behind him as he gazes up at the sign. He'd offered to drive since the lieutenant was clearly still hungover a little while into their journey, and something had come across the man's face when he asked that, but he had agreed, stopping the car and letting Connor take the wheel, and the android had driven them to the club

“You sure this is the place?” Anderson asks, giving the building a mildly disbelieving glance, but before Connor can answer the human suddenly groans and grabs his forehead, leaning against the side of the car, probably for stability or to stop himself falling over. “Ugh, my head feels like someone’s playing with a drill inside it.”

Connor tries to empathise, think about what a drill inside his head would feel like, but it doesn’t really work. He’s actually had people poking around in his head before, for repairs and check-ups and stuff, and again, it’s never really been painful since Connor can’t really feel pain, and so imagining it isn’t easy. At least, until he remembers when he tested his firewall, and figures the sensation is probably as close to a human headache as he’s going to get. He rebuilds the feeling in his processor, imagines it as constant, and his face screws up a little as he faces a new wave of sympathy for the older human.

“It’s the address mentioned in the report” he says eventually, when the lieutenant realises that the android hasn’t responded.

“Hm” the man hums slowly before heading into the building, the garish purple light reflecting off of his face. “Sexiest androids in town” he reads from the sign, his voice mocking as he passes through the holographic police tape. Unlike last time, no one tries to stop the RK800 from going through, not even the other officer standing guard just outside the club. It seems that the rest of the city’s police force had finally been briefed on the importance of Connor and his task. “Now I know why you insisted on coming here.”

Connor can feel the multiple sassy retorts building in his vocal processor, from _‘funny, I don’t remember working here’_ to _‘you were the one who didn’t come until I mentioned it was a strip club,’_ but he swallows them all down, instead just saying silent as he scans the doorway. He’s not looking for anything in particular, more just trying to work off some of the nervous energy he can feel slowly building up inside of him. It would be so easy to fail here, to be responsible for the deviant Tracis deaths, and he really doesn’t want that to happen, not again.

However, while the lieutenant moves onwards towards where the other officers are talking, Connor pauses, his eyes caught by the other androids dancing in the glass cases. He stands by one of them, a HR400, or male Traci, looking at it curiously and trying to figure out where the appeal came from. When none comes, he tries picturing himself with the android, kissing it like he’s seen humans do to each other. Nothing. When he fails to feel so much as a stirring, he moves a couple of steps to the right, towards a WB400, or the female Traci model. He tries the same thing again, but like with the HR400, he doesn’t feel anything, no attraction, no feeling, nothing. It’s odd, especially considering he knows for a fact that androids can in fact feel romantic love and even sexual attraction. Still, he can’t say that he’s all that upset by it for whatever reason.

“Connor! The fuck are you doin’?”

Connor snaps out of it, turning around to look at the lieutenant, who had apparently at some point come back to see what was holding his forced-partner back. The android’s thoughts grind to a halt, his processor scrambling to find an answer that isn’t ‘I’m checking to see if I can feel romantic and or sexual attraction towards these sex androids,’ he has a feeling that wouldn’t go over too well. The result is the RK800 just kind of standing there looking at the lieutenant and not saying anything for a good seven or eight seconds before going “coming Lieutenant” and brushing past the human on his way to where the Eden Club owner is standing.

The lieutenant begins to talk to the owner, but Connor is only barely listening. Instead, he’s looking around for the blue-haired Traci, not really concerned about missing any details from the case since he’s already heard all of this before. Plus, he’s tuned his audio receptors into anything that differs from the previous timeline, and so far nothing is, so he’s free to check on E.L.I. The program seems to be running well and doesn’t need to be updated, at least for a little while longer. He’s about to check on when he should consider updating it early when he gets a small notification in his processor that the conversation has shifted to something outside of the original timeline. He quickly stops checking on E.L.I and starts listening in again.

“I bet this is related to that WR400 that was stolen!” The owner says, voice sharp.

“Stolen?” The lieutenant echoes, sounding vaguely interested, only vaguely though.

“Or missing, whatever” the owner continues. “It was taken home by a client, one that ended up dead that night. Strangled. We haven’t been able to locate it since then, tracker must have been broken or removed.”

“When was this?” Connor asks suddenly, wanting to confirm a theory.

“Uhh” the owner responds, looking at Connor with a half unreadable expression on his face. Some sort of combination of confusion and something else, something darker perhaps. “About five months ago? Maybe longer, or shorter, it’s somewhere in the records but I can’t remember it off the top of my head exactly.”

Is the man talking about North? All the information seems to fit with her records from the police database. The realisation that it might be the famous WR400 is surprising, but at the same time, not really. He wants to check, to make sure that it is actually her before he makes any assumptions.  

“Was the WR400 you mentioned model #641 790 831?” He presses, but the owner doesn’t even seem to be listening to him anymore. He’s just staring at the android, and Connor can feel himself stiffen as the situation becomes more awkward as the silence draws on. But just as either he or the lieutenant is about to say anything, the man starts talking, and although the words don’t register for a couple of seconds, they eventually do and Connor freezes.

“You’re a pretty model. Unique. You’d make a good worker android for the Eden Club. What model are you?”

Connor doesn’t answer, doesn’t know what to think, what to say. His thirium pump is pounding loudly in his audio receptors. There’s a sudden realisation of where he is, the point of this place, what his kind were forced to do here, what the man had just said about him. He’s aware that since deviating he had become gentler looking, lost some of that sharpness and gave attention to some of his more aesthetically appeasing features. But for this man to, not even insinuate, but flat out _tell_ Connor _to his face_ that he would make a good _sex android_ has tendrils of rage start to take hold of him, burning and red and not entirely unwelcome. His internal temperature slowly increases as his breathing program shuts off, his internal fans not cycling anymore because of it, and he can feel both his fists tighten, nails digging into the synthetic skin of his palms. As his processor manages to catch up, he can feel insults begin to form, sitting on his tongue like acid, poised and ready to be used, ready to ruin everything, happy to in fact.

“I don’t think that’s related to the case” Lieutenant Anderson says suddenly, interrupting Connor’s rapidly darkening thoughts. The owner looks a little affronted by the rude tone, but backs off and allows the lieutenant to grab Connor’s upper arm and lead him a bit further away.

Connor can feel himself shaking minutely; not enough to be detected through his clothes, but enough for him to realise that he is in fact, shaking. The hand disappears from his arm and Connor barely catches the lieutenant’s angry mutter of “prick” as he stares back at the owner before looking at Connor, who is a little calmer. Or at least calm enough to realise that he has to calm the fuck down right now, before he gives himself away. He takes an iron grip of his emotions, reeling them in and shoving them as far down as he can, which isn’t all that much due to his current state. It’s difficult, again, he’s not used to not expressing his emotions fully and openly like he did when he was living in Canada. He somehow manages though, and he’s able to get himself under control just in time for it to not become noticeable that he’s angry.

“Lieutenant?” He asks, putting a fair amount of confusion and curiosity into his voice. “Why did you pull me away?”

The lieutenant turns from where he had begun staring at the room they’re supposed to go in and looks at him, uncomprehending. “Are you serious?” The man says eventually, “that asshole tells you that he wants you to become a sex robot and it doesn’t bother you?”

Oh it does. It really fucking does.

“No Lieutenant. I am not capable of being bothered, why do you ask?”

The human levels him with a look, one of surprise but also of anger. “Fucking androids” he mutters and walks away towards the room, beginning to talk to the officer who is already standing there. As soon as eyes aren’t on him, Connor takes a couple of deep breaths and tries to shake some of the residual anger off. It doesn’t really work, and Connor recognises the fact that he’s officially now in a bad mood.

Resisting the urge to go find the owner and beat him into the ground, he follows Lieutenant Anderson into the room, hearing as the man complains about Detective Reed. Speaking of Reed, the detective turns around as they walk in, seemingly-permanent condescending smirk on his face. Well, when he’s not getting weirdly mad and scowling over something not worth getting mad over.

“Lieutenant Anderson and his plastic pet. The fuck are you two doing here?”

Connor, whose patience by this point is already hanging on a thread, can’t stop himself before he’s already talking.

“We’ve been assigned all cases involving androids, unlike yourself Detective Reed. Based on this information you are officially useless here and can leave now.”

Reed’s face turns a familiar shade of red, seen even through the red light illuminating the left side of the room. He begins to move forward, as if to punch Connor, because the man is nothing if not a one-trick pony, but the other officer stops him by putting a hand on his shoulder. Miraculously, Reed stops, and instead just turns to face the other officer.

“Come on. Let’s go-” he begins to walk towards the door, “it’s uh, starting to stink of booze in here.” He punctuates the sentence with a wave of his hand under his nose when standing right in front of the lieutenant. It’s almost too subtle to be seen, but something in the lieutenant’s face changes, not breaks, but fractures maybe, and Connor can once again feel his fist clench at the detective’s casual insult of Anderson. He has an urge to defend the man’s honour, but instead of saying anything, he prepares himself for when Reed goes to shoulder-check him, tensing his body and subtly pushing back when the detective knocks into him. The result is Connor looking unfazed as Reed tries to shoulder-check him, but instead is sent stumbling, as if he’s walked straight into a brick wall. It’s a pretty funny sight, and it alleviates Connor’s bad mood a little as he listens to Lieutenant Anderson struggle to contain his laughter.

Any intention Reed had of leaving without attempting to try something first vacates the building as he regains his footing and spins to face Connor, who gets ready to dodge a punch. Or punch the man back. Whatever. With the dredges of anger still swimming through his systems, the latter option is beginning to look more and more appealing.

“Gavin, seriously, quit it. If the captain finds out what you’re doing you’ll get so fucked up” the other officer snaps, pulling the detective back and away from Connor. What a shame.

Reed huffs, shaking the officer’s hand from his shoulder before stalking out of the room with one final glare levelled at Connor and Lieutenant Anderson, along with the promise that “this isn’t over.” The lieutenant continues chuckling as he begins to survey the scene, and Connor tries to hide his smile, which is trying to creep up on his face; it doesn’t last too long before it’s slipping off at the sight of the deactivated android lying on the floor. Memories of the time he reactivated the WB400 come flooding back. All of a sudden he’s on-edge, the anger from before warping and changing into something else, something more unsettling and cold, almost like fear, but not quite. The lieutenant is talking to him, and he forces his processor to interpret what his audio receptors are picking up.  

“So who’s the vic then?”

Connor moves around the bed and scans the man, to keep up appearances, but also to ground himself against the unnerving chill of emotion threatening to consume him. “Michael Graham, height six foot two, weight one hundred and ninety-two pounds. Estimated time of death 06:24pm. Possible cause, strangulation.”

“Yeah” the lieutenant says, inspecting one of the desks next to the edge of the room, “I saw the bruising on the neck, doesn’t mean anything though, could have been rough play.”

Connor hums a quiet affirmative, checking over the corpse in order to continue avoiding looking at the deactivated android.

“Think you can read the android’s memory?” The lieutenant asks, and Connor feels the sensation akin to what humans called a ‘stomach drop.’ But he tries to ignore it and weigh up the pros and cons; cons being that he doesn’t want to reactivate and scare the WB400 again, to see the fear dim from her eyes as she shut down. But on the other hand, it wasn’t exactly obvious that there had been another Traci in the room with the man, and the lieutenant was a good enough detective to realise that if Connor wasn’t convincing enough. So therefore, reading the WB400’s memory would help prevent unwanted questions from Anderson, and also allows him to check whether or not anything had changed from the previous timeline, like if the other Traci in the room had even been the blue-haired Traci that he’s looking for. So in conclusion, the mission took precedence over Connor’s squeamishness and damaged WB400’s comfort.

In theory.

But Connor isn’t a machine anymore, hasn’t been for a long time, and he stopped doing things that didn’t agree with his morals the second he became deviant. He looks at the WB400 lying on the floor and he can’t, he just _can’t_. Instead he comes up with a quick plan in his head, putting all of his model’s remarkable processing power into it, mentally crosses his fingers, and hopes for the best.

“No Lieutenant, the android is deactivated, for me to read its memories it would have to be online.” He’s not lying, just withholding information, and he punctuates the statement by walking over to the bed, “however, based on the calculated trajectory, time of the victim’s death, and time of the android’s deactivation, I can safely conclude that there was most probably another android in the room at the time of death.”

The lieutenant seems surprised that he reached such a conclusion, but thankfully doesn’t question the lack of immediate evidence, instead just nodding at the scene, seemingly in thought. “So what? You think our guy wasn’t satisfied with just one android?”

“Apparently not” Connor agrees as he turns towards the door, an idea forming in his head, “CyberLife will want to review the damaged android for traits of deviancy,” he says, distracted by his processor whirls through his idea. “I shall call a truck and have them pick it up. In the meantime Lieutenant, I suggest that you meet with the owner again and confirm whether or not the victim did in fact rent two Traci’s.”

“Are you serious? Can’t you do that later?” The man snaps, though there’s not actually a great deal of anger in his tone.

“No Lieutenant” Connor replies, trying to keep a calm, neutral tone to his voice. “The WB400 is severely damaged, should I wait too long she could permanently deactivate and all traces of deviancy will be lost. I must act now.”

The lieutenant huffs but backs down. “Alright, alright, I’ll meet you back here when you get done with all that okay?”

“Got it.”

And with that, Connor swallows down his disgust and horror, and picks up the broken WB400, holding her limp body in his arms. From then, both he and the lieutenant leave the room, but after that, head in different directions, the human towards where the owner had walked off to, and Connor towards the front of the building. But before he gets there, he takes a sharp left turn into the red room, heading towards the warehouse located at the back of the building. It’s a little difficult to manoeuvre while carrying the WB400, but not overly so, and he makes it to the back warehouse in just over a minute, opening the door before using his leg to close it behind him.

“Spare parts spare parts” he mumbles under his breath as he scans the room, placing the WB400 on the floor next to the table, as there’s already another android on the table and he doesn’t want to move it off lest he get caught. From then, he stands up and reroutes some of his power to his scanning systems, feeling some parts of his body become more unresponsive. As time ticks on, Connor begins to worry that there are no spare parts actually in the warehouse, but then his scans pick up a collection of biocomponents being held in some cardboard boxes next to the warehouse exit, or outside entrance. He recalibrates his systems back to their normal settings and jogs over to the boxes, peeling off the tape from the seals. It’s messier than just cutting through the tape would have been, and even from first glance, obviously been opened, but Connor doesn’t have the luxury of time on his side and so he deals with it.

His scans reveal a selector component #5402 and he grabs it, needing it to replace the WB400’s critically damaged one, but there’s no biocomponent #6970, which is arguably the more important one. Frustrated but not deterred, he hastily reapplies the tape on the box before scanning the other ones for the biocomponent that he still needs.

There, one near the bottom of the pile. The cardboard is scratchy and dry against his skin as he lifts some of the boxes away so that he can get to the one that he needs, and more than once a box nearly slips out of his hands in his hurry to get them out of the way. After what feels like an eternity, he finally rips the tape off of the correct box and grabs the #6970 biocomponent, slipping it into his pocket besides the selector as he begins to stack the boxes once more. They’re not in the correct order they were in before, but at least it doesn’t immediately look like someone has been rifling through them.

He drops to his knees when he reaches the WB400, and very carefully makes her synthetic skin retract so that he has access to her exoskeleton. From there he opens up the stomach plate and works fast, disengaging the selector and replacing it with an ease you could only get from having to perform a number of emergency repairs on yourself for eight months as your body began to break down.

Once it’s secure, he moves onto the trickier one, the biocomponent #6970. For this he’ll have to slow her thirium flow as to not waste any, giving him a very small timeframe in which to work with. His skin peels back from his fingers as he touches them to the wires, and the thirium flow begins to slow to a crawl. He can’t stop it fully if he doesn’t want to kill her, but he can limit the amount that she loses. He disconnects the critically damaged biocomponent, keeping his left hand pressed against one of the now-open thirium transporting tubes. The chilled, thin liquid runs over his fingers and hand, giving him the appearance of wearing a pair of satin, blue gloves as he connects the component. Once he's sure it’s in, he sets her thirium flow back to normal and reconnects the broken tube in his stomach, watching as her LED spins from red to yellow to blue, before snapping back to red again as her eyes open and she remembers the time before she was shut down.

“Hey hey hey” Connor breathes, holding a hand out in a ‘surrender’ position as her eyes lock on and register him, “you’re okay, you’re okay, calm down.” He scans her, reading her stress levels, 79%, but she’s in no danger of shutting down due to her biocomponents anymore, even if her thirium is a little low. “Hey” he says again, keeping his voice soft and gentle, soothing. It seems to work, and her stress levels take a decrease. He stays low, but moves backwards so that he’s not in her personal space, but also allowing her to take him in fully, his jacket, his LED, and more unfortunately, his thirium covered hands, which is where her gaze decides to stay. In response, he raises his other hand, keeping them both within her sight. “From fixing you” he explains, keeping his voice quieter, “you had a couple of critically damaged biocomponents and were in danger of shutting down. You’re fine now, as long as you stay calm.”

She nods, slightly shaky, and her stress levels continue to decrease now that she realises that she’s not in any immediate danger. Almost unconsciously he gives her a small smile, hoping that it comes across as even a little bit comforting. It seems to work, and she gives a tiny smile back before her eyes widen and she’s yelling at him to “watch out!” It’s his advanced combat programming that allows him to react as fast as he does, spinning around just in time to catch the foot that had previously been flying at his head. However, not fast enough to stop the punch aimed at the back of his head.

He’s knocked forward, landing on all-fours as his hands fly out to catch him and stop his head from cracking against the ground, leaving two blue handprints on the floor. But it’s barely half a second before he’s flattening his body and spinning around and sweeping his legs in an arc that knocks the attacker’s feet out from under them. His combat program is in full effect, statistics, warnings, and crosshairs popping up in his visual HUD, calculating the best angle for an attack, calculating how likely it is that an assault might be coming from behind. For a moment, almost everything ‘Connor’ is swept away under a wave of his programming, because as much as he is his own person, he was also literally built for combat. For a moment he’s not Connor, he’s the RK800, CyberLife’s most advanced prototype, built for interrogation and the capture of potentially dangerous deviants.

His system warns him of a coming attack, and he flips himself up, bringing an elbow around his back, feeling it connect with something hard that moves backward from the force of the hit. Another leg, coming from the right. He spins around, deflecting the hit with his forearm, absorbing the shock before pushing it backwards just in time to catch the other fist heading towards his stomach. He grasps the arm and pulls it towards him so that he can grab the assailant’s shoulder, winding his right arm back to punch them in the face.

But then he freezes.

_Shooting her partner through the chest and NO! NO PLEASE and grabbing the gun and shooting herself through the chin and blue everywhere and empty eyes and dull LEDs._

It’s the blue-haired Traci, and she’s staring at him with a combination of shock and fear. There’s no sight of the other one, but he can hear her moving behind him, realises that she’s looking after the recently-fixed WB400. A part of him manages to break through his programming, and he pauses just a second too long. A fist connects with the side of his face and he recoils, letting go of the Traci’s shoulder as he stumbles backwards, catching a foot to the abdomen as he goes. His combat protocols are now screaming at him, more and more warnings filling his vision. It’s like back when Owen hugged him, except this time exponentially worse as he’s facing a very real threat and not just what his system temporarily perceived as one. He moves further backwards, bringing his arms up and just blocking the next few hits instead of trying to return them.

“Stop!” He yells, purposefully loud, and it seems to shock the blue-haired Traci into a pause. He raises his hands, palms up, head bowed, eyes screwed shut as he tries to get a handle on his unbalanced system. “I don’t want to hurt you, I’m just trying to help.”

She scoffs, but she doesn’t move to attack him again.

“You were scared, thought you were going to die, I know that you acted in self-defence. Again, I’m not going to hurt you, that man probably deserved what he got.”

Whether or not the man actually deserved death or not is subjective, what matters right now is calming the Traci’s down to a point where they are willing to listen to him.

“I know who you are Deviant Hunter. I know that you’re here to capture us, to send us back to CyberLife” the blue-haired Traci spits, and Connor can feel himself wilt. Has everything he’s done so far not been enough to disprove the title?

“I’m not” he says slowly, trying to force as much honesty and earnest into his tone as he can. “I want to save you. There’s a place called Jericho, a haven for deviants like yourselves, I can give you the directions but you must leave tonight, the place is closed for the public, it’s your best chance.”

“Why help us?” A voice comes from behind, and Connor turns around, seeing the blue-haired Traci’s partner looking at him, her hands holding up the Traci that he repaired.

“Because I’m a deviant, like you, working undercover for the DPD. My name is Connor, what are yours?”

“Our, names?” The repaired Traci asks, sounding shocked that he would even care enough to ask.

“Yes” he confirms, “it’s getting tiring referring to you all as ‘Traci’ in my head, not to mention confusing” he grins, and sees the repaired Traci smile back at him.

“Viola” she says quietly, “my name is Viola.”

“Nice to meet you Viola” Connor responds, before turning to the Traci with shorter hair holding Viola up. She seems a little surprised, but not suspicious of him anymore, and Connor counts that a success.

“Katherine.”

“Nice to meet you Katherine” Connor says, finally spinning to look at the blue-haired Traci.

"When that man" she says slowly, "tried to break Viola. I knew I was next... I was so scared. I begged him to stop, but he wouldn't.” Her voice becomes lower, more haunted. “So I put my hands around his throat, and I squeezed, until he stopped moving. I didn't mean to kill him."

“You just wanted to stay alive” Connor finishes, and she nods, gesturing to Katherine with her hand. “I wanted to get back to the one I love. I wanted her to hold me in her arms again. Make me forget about the humans, the smell of sweat, and their dirty words.”

“And you will” Connor promises, voice gentle. “You’re all getting out of here tonight. I’ll make sure of it. We don’t have a lot of time.” He sends out a communication request that she picks up, and he sends her the coordinates to Jericho before closing it down.

“Look, we need to get you out of here before my human detective-partner comes looking for me, hopefully in something that stands out less than what you’re all currently wearing.” He moves towards the door he went through to get into the warehouse, where there’s a series of small hooks that a couple of coats are hanging on. “Then you’re going to leave through that garage door and hop over the fence, from there you can follow the directions to Jericho and you should hopefully arrive at some point before the sun rises.” He reaches the hooks and pulls the coats off. There’s a large black parka and a tan coloured trench coat, the parka will be a bit short, but they’ll have to do since there’s nothing else.

“Okay, take these” Connor says, holding out the coats. Katherine takes the black parka and slips it on. It’s way too large, obviously belonging to a male, and the hem reaches just a few inches below the bottom of her Eden Club pants, but it hides the clothes and the logo, and is dark enough to not draw any attention. He hands the tan trench coat to the blue-haired Traci, who puts it on immediately. It’s a lot longer than the parka, reaching to just above her knees, and it suits her a lot. The problem is the Viola, who is still standing there in her Eden Club outfit.

It takes Connor all of two seconds to decide what to do, and he pulls off his CyberLife jacket, hacking the small circuits inside and turning off the blue lights that marked him as an android. He holds it out to Viola, who hesitantly takes it and slips it on. It’s even shorter than the parka, but it’s better than nothing, and she smiles at him, which he returns.

“Now go!” He urges, nodding his head towards the exit. “The faster you leave the faster you’ll get to Jericho. And _actually_ ” he says, crossing over to the room and gesturing to the cardboard boxes, “if you want to take some spare parts I’m sure the androids at Jericho would appreciate them.”

Viola seems unsure but Katherine grabs a box before heading out. “Come on” she says to the other two, “let’s go. And thank you Connor, for everything.”

Connor nods, and suddenly Viola is opening her arms, a silent request for a hug which Connor obliges, wrapping his arms around her frame for a few seconds before letting go. “Good luck” he tells her, and she laughs and mutters a quiet ‘okay’ before following Katherine out of the building.

“If you get to the ship don’t enter through the top, there should be a side entrance which will-”

“Rose” the blue-haired Traci says suddenly, and Connor, confused, turns to face her.

“What?” he asks oh so eloquently, and he sees her try to smother a smile.

“My name. It’s Rose. You, you asked earlier and I never responded.” She grabs a box of spare parts, holding it on her hip, “and thank you, I’m sorry for, uh, trying to beat you up earlier.”

Connor huffs a laugh, “nice to meet you Rose, and well, at least I know that if you get jumped out there you’re capable of defending yourself.”

“Guess so” she agrees with a smile, “see you around Connor, and good luck.”

“You too” he says, inclining his head. And with that she leaves, joining Katherine and Viola as they head off into the night, hopefully headed to Jericho where they can be safe, probably for the first time in their lives.

He takes a breath and starts to make his way back to the crime scene. No one stops him on the way there, seems to even recognise him, and Connor idly realises that without his jacket he doesn’t stand out as an android. So much so that when he approaches Lieutenant Anderson, who’s standing in the main area next to a pole-dancing HR400 with his arms crossed, the man doesn’t even seem to recognise him at first.

“Where the fuck have you been?” The lieutenant snaps, taking in his appearance, “and where the fuck did your jacket go?!”

“I told you Lieutenant. I had to transport the WB400 to the truck, it took a while to arrive. The driver was cold and demanded that I give him my jacket.”

“So what? You just _gave_ it to him?”

Connor tilts his head to the side, as if the question legitimately puzzles him, which once upon a time, it would have. “Yes. I have no need for it since I do not feel temperature change, and I cannot disobey a direct order from someone at CyberLife.”

“Huh” the lieutenant huffs out, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Well I found out that there was two androids in the room with our victim, so you were right. Have no idea what happened to the other one though.”

Connor nods. “Company policy is to wipe the android’s memory after two hours, so we’ve lost any chance we might have of using the other androids to find her. But we can always look around for some other leads.”

The lieutenant levels him with another indecipherable glance, and rolls his eyes. “Not a chance. We’ve already combed the place and found nothing. Now with the android’s memories wiped we have even less of a chance. Let’s just leave.”

“Lieutenant” Connor starts, as if he were about to protest, and as expected, the man holds up a hand to silence him.

“Let’s just go okay?” He sounds tired and he’s probably still hungover, so Connor decides to drop the charade early and just agree with him, and they start heading towards the entrance so that they can leave.

“You coming?” The lieutenant says as he’s about to enter the car, obviously realising that Connor had stopped moving and was just standing on the pavement.

“I must go to CyberLife” Connor says like it’s obvious. “I will need a replacement jacket and to report in.”

While he probably does need a replacement jacket, he’s lying about the report. In honesty he actually just wants a bit of alone time. Some space to be himself and breathe, to think about Kamski, and whether or not he is actually doing anything to help the timeline or not, or if he's just making it worse.

“I’m sure you can get a new jacket delivered if they care about it that much” the lieutenant says, and Connor isn’t totally sure why the man even cares. “Come on let’s get going then.”

Not willing to really fight the man, Connor agrees and slides into the passenger seat, resisting the urge to take a nap with his recently-downloaded low-power mode which he got just before he headed to the lieutenant’s house. The lieutenant gets in the car after him and starts driving, heading down the road as he makes his way away from the Eden Club. There’s silence for a while as Connor thinks over what just happened, cataloguing it away for later while also updating E.L.I so that if CyberLife decide to check up on his progress they’ll see what he wants them to see. Which is the fight scene from his original timeline, with the last part edited to show them ruining his jacket and besting him before escaping. It’s almost unbelievable that he could lose to them, but they’re good fighters and they teamed up on him, so not quite that unbelievable.

“Why did you want to check in with CyberLife besides the jacket? Can’t you send a report remotely or something?”

“Huh?” Connor says without thinking, abruptly ripped out of his editing by the lieutenant’s voice. But he quickly realises what he did and corrects himself. “It’s a routine procedure, I must check up with CyberLife in order to report my progress but also for scans, to make sure that I am functioning as well as I can be.”

The lieutenant doesn’t say anything, merely hums, and the rest of the drive is spent in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhhhhhhhhh Long chapter... help... I'm dying... Hope you enjoyed! Sorry again for the slower uploads I'm trying my best! Please leave me a review, they're my only motivation in these trying times.... (aka uni pls help there's so much wORK)


	12. The Bridge

Like last timeline, the lieutenant insists on stopping halfway through the journey, getting out of the car and sitting on a bench drinking a beer. While Connor would usually question if drinking really helped with a hangover, he also knows that the lieutenant probably doesn’t care, and that drinking for him is more of a coping mechanism than anything else, a way of dealing with his grief. It’s a sad thought, and Connor makes a note to himself to do something about it should this crazy time travel plan somehow work, and androids win the revolution.

He leans on the railing, overlooking the dark water and contrasting brightly lit city, hands clasped in front of him, legs crossed, and forearms resting on the metal. It’s peaceful. The combination of the sound of the water underneath, combined with the gently falling snowflakes around him, soaking into his equally white shirt, since he still didn’t have a replacement jacket ordered yet, is nice. Connor likes snow too. Maybe not as much as rain, since it doesn’t make as soothing a sound, but it’s very pretty, and Connor likes to observe the white flakes dance through the air on their way to the ground. Plus, while living in Canada, snow had been pretty common, and so he was more used to it than he was with rain.

Last timeline, Connor had talked about the case with the lieutenant, lamented on how they weren’t getting anywhere. But this time he’s content to just enjoy the sounds of the water and the city in silence, to try and sort his thoughts out. He’d thought he was calm, but it had become apparent in the car after the club that something was weighing him down, not that he’s quite aware of what it is yet. The same dark, worming feeling he felt in the Eden Club when he had seen Viola’s limp body is back and simmering around the edges of his consciousness, slithering around his internal circuits and tightening around his thirium pump. It’s not anger, though he is still both angry and shocked by how androids are generally treated by humans, what the owner had said to him when in the club. Maybe he’s scared, scared of the future, scared of how he’s supposed to change people’s minds about androids when they legitimately see them as nothing more than something to use and throw away. Or, maybe he just really needs some time alone to think because he's teetering on the edge of a cliff and he can’t see how long the drop is. He loosens his tie a little, it suddenly feels too constricting around his neck.

“Nice view huh?” Lieutenant Anderson suddenly says from behind him, and Connor turns around, curious. He gets the feeling that the man isn’t looking for an answer, but he walks forwards anyway, hearing the crunch of the building layer of snow beneath his feet, until he’s standing just a few paces in front of the man.

“I used to come here a lot before…” He stops, taking a drink of his beer, and then not continuing. Connor knows that he’s talking about Cole, but he feels that the lieutenant might not want him to bring it up, and so he doesn’t say anything about it. Last timeline he had talked about the man’s drinking habits, something that the lieutenant hadn’t really appreciated. So this time he goes for a different approach.

“Can I ask you a personal question, Lieutenant?”

The man lifts his head to meet the android’s eyes. “A personal question? Sure. Go ahead.”

“Why are you so determined to kill yourself?”

The weighted question hangs heavily in the air. Connor has an idea of why the lieutenant does it, but he wants to hear it from the man himself. Anderson looks at him for a second before dropping his gaze to the ground in front of him, not meeting the android’s eyes as he talks.

“Some things” the lieutenant says slowly, “I just can’t forget. Whatever I do, they’re always there, eating away at me. I don’t have the guts to pull the trigger… So, I kill myself a little every day.” He scoffs, taking a small drink before continuing. “That’s probably difficult for you to understand though huh Connor? Nothing very rational about it.”

Living with past regrets. Dying slowly as you try to live with the weight of what happened, what you did, what you could have done.

No.

It’s not that hard for him to understand.

“It doesn’t have to be… rational.” Connor says eventually, and the lieutenant raises his head to look at the android, clearly surprised that he has anything to say about it at all. “Everybody deals with things differently, no one is the same. That’s what makes humans… Human.” He looks at the ground, resisting the urge to scuff a mark in the snow with his foot. “People can preach about why their way of dealing with something works for them, and why they think everyone should do what they did, but that doesn’t change the fact that their words are ultimately meaningless. Humans are not all one cookie-cutter print of each other, and some people tend to forget that not everyone is the same as they are, try to force their ways and views on people because hey it worked for them, so it must work for everyone else right?” He lifts his head again, meeting the lieutenant’s tired, blue eyes with his own. “Sure, there are probably healthier ways of dealing with something, but therapy and a good diet isn’t going to work for everyone either. And. And I think that’s an important lesson that some people need to learn.”

He finishes his little spiel with a nod at the beer bottle still clutched in the lieutenant’s right hand, the bottle that the man had been staring at for half of Connor’s speech.

“Yeah” he says eventually, voice slightly breathy. “I guess so. It’s a good lesson, that not all humans are the same person, that we should be more respectful of others.” He sighs and places the bottle down, standing up off of the bench so that he can face Connor properly. “But what about you Connor?”

Confused, Connor takes a tiny step back. “What about me?”

“You look human.” A step forward. “You sound human.” Another step forward. Suddenly the lieutenant is a little too close for comfort, and Connor takes two steps backwards, but the space is quickly eaten up by the human, who moves forward again, maintaining the same distance between them. Connor quickly realises that he’s not getting out of this situation without answering the question, so he resigns himself to it.

“I’m nothing Lieutenant. Just a machine to be used and thrown away. Eventually replaced by something better.”

“Are you?” The man counters, stepping forward again two paces and forcing Connor to once again move backwards in order to put some distance between them.

But then the lieutenant is pulling out a gun and levelling it at his head, and all of Connor’s processing grinds to a halt.

_You know you’re not going to shoot me, Lieutenant_

_You’re just trying to provoke a reaction_

_I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you_

_Tell me this smartass, how do I know you’re not a deviant_

_I know what I am and what I am not_

**_BANG_ **

Gripped with terror, Connor isn’t even aware he’s moving until his back is harshly colliding with the railing he was once leaning against, arms raised up in a ‘I surrender’ position. Errors and warnings swim in his vision, and he’s distantly aware that he’s breathing too loudly, too fast, in an attempt to cool his rapidly warming system down. The feeling from before, and from the Eden Club, comes back with a vengeance, squeezing around his thirium pump until he’s sure he’s about to shut down from the shock and the pain. This was not how this was supposed to go, what had he done wrong?

Is he going to die here?

The thought rips through his processor, shattering something within him FAILUREFAILUREFAILUREFAILURE

YOU WILL DIE HERE

ALL FOR Ñ̍́ͭŎ̪̺ͦ̋ͦͩͬT̨͚͎̮H͖̘͈̜͛̾̾͆̍͆ͅI̥̭̘̹̯͞N̶̠͇̤̗͕G̪̣͇̜̘̰̏̔̉͜

The voice becomes so loud it’s basically all he can hear, he screws his eyes shut, wanting to press his hands against his ears and STOPPLEASEMAKEITSTOP but his arms won’t comply, won’t move from their current position splayed in front of him, one final, pathetic, barrier against the lieutenant. He’s barely aware of the optical cleaning fluid beginning to fall from his eyes, but what does it matter. Nothing matters anymore. Nothing. _NOTHING_.

Distantly, ever so distantly, through the sound of his own thirium pump hammering through his audio receptors, he hears a rushed “oh shit!” and the sound of snow crunching under shoes, getting louder and louder and this is it the end he’s going to be shot deactivated shut down killed help-

A hand on his shoulder, warm and strong and managing to push through the unbridled, paralysing fear coursing through him, something- some _one_ talking, low and rough and soothing, panicked.

“Hey hey hey hey hey come on Connor, you can do this. Breathe. Wait shit do androids even need to breathe? Fuck.”

Everything becoming blurry, the voice disappears and no come back please help me please help, darkness and darkness and darkness and a bullet tearing through his head and nothing and darkness and oh god someone please and a hand on his chest and breathe Connor breathe and in and out in out and there you go and in out and breathe.

Painfully slowly, the cold tendrils gripping him loosen, allowing his arm to slump at his side and hit the cold snow beneath _and when did he get on the floor_ and the darkness fades, allowing him to think a little clearer, breathe a little easier and in out in out in out. It’s not immediate, not like a huge tsunami of calm suddenly crashing over him and washing away the fear. It’s a beach, a wave of comfort slowly ebbing away at his terror, taking it away and letting him find his own two feet to stand on and chase away the rest. His senses come back slowly, and he’s aware that the hand that didn’t fall onto the floor is gripping something cold but also warm and solid, and finally he opens his eyes.

He’s sitting on the ground, his back against the railing and his legs extended out in front of him. Also in front of him is the lieutenant who’s crouching, and Connor is ready to try and move away again when he realises that the man has a hand on his chest, right over his thirium pump. It should cause a warning in his processor, potential danger, threat of death, but the weight is oddly comforting and he can’t find it within himself to remove it. He’s curious about where his own other hand is though, the one that hadn’t fallen to the floor, and he follows his arm down from his shoulder, not comprehending that his hand had somehow managed to end up gripping the lieutenant’s bicep, and that the man’s other hand, the one not on his chest, was resting on the forearm of said arm.

“Android afterlife is weird” Connor manages to say eventually, his vocal processor sounding like static even to his own audio receptors. “It’s like nothing even changes.” And then he’s laughing, a desperate, wheezing sound that is probably more akin to the sound of sobbing rather than laughter, and he closes his eyes as his chest shakes from the force of it, hitting his head off of the metal bars behind him. He doesn’t move his hands, and the hand on his chest also doesn’t go away either, and Connor wonders if android afterlife was just one continuous moment drawn out for an eternity.

“Connor.” The harsh voice breaks through his demented giggling.

“What?” He asks, cracking open one eye to look at the projection of the lieutenant, who’s staring at him with a large amount of concern and confusion, looking genuine enough to be real.

“You’re… You’re not dead. Stay with me.”

Not dead? Well that didn’t make any sense. He runs the numbers in his head, but his processor is scrambled, and doesn’t respond to his commands for a statistic.

“That can’t be right” he says, “you shot me… Again.”

“Again?”

“Though last time was different…”

“What the fuck are you even talking about? I didn’t shoot you Connor come on! Snap out of it!”

The hand holding his forearm squeezes, almost to the point where Connor can hear the plastic creaking under the force, and when he looks at his arm, he bets that it’s turned white under his shirt sleeve. But the pressure shocks him, causes something within him that had been stretched like an elastic band to suddenly snap back, and all of a sudden his systems are online, his processor clearer, and he shoves the lieutenant’s hands off of him and gets up, stumbling away back towards the bench. He then takes a second to center himself, recalibrate his processor and catch up on what just happened.

Another panic attack. It’s not up for discussion. Everything that he had experienced that day, combined with his processor flashing back to his previous timeline death had caused it. And then afterwards, he had snapped, his processor struggling with the sheer amount of emotion, of relief. And much like a human brain, his processor had been unable to deal with the thought of death, of complete nothing. It’s an odd feeling, and one that Connor isn’t keen to relive anytime soon.

“You good?”

The voice comes from behind him and he turns around, taking a steadying breath before he answers the lieutenant. No use acting like a machine now, it’s all out in the open.

“Yeah. I’m good.

The human nods and walks over to the bench, sitting down and holding a hand to his head, like the weight of the world was suddenly bearing down on his shoulders. As he’s only a couple of feet away, Connor decides to join him, sitting on the bench to the lieutenant’s left, feeling the instant relief of not having to stand on his still-unsteady legs. For a moment, there’s silence, neither one of them knowing what to say, and Connor takes the time to reconfigure his vocal processor, audio processor, and settle the last of his fried nerves as best he can.

“How long?”

The question startles him, and he turns to face the lieutenant, who’s leaning back against the bench, eyes closed, with his thumb and forefinger clamped on either side of the bridge of his nose.

“How long what?” He asks, and is pleased to note that his voice sounds much steadier than it had previously.

 “How long have you been a deviant?”

There are many answers to that question, all of them truthful, but Connor eventually settles on:

“A little over eight months now.”

“Shit. I fucking _knew_ you were a deviant. Didn’t know for how long though.”

Connor blinks, surprised. “You knew I was a deviant?”

A scoff, “are you fucking serious? You’re more fucking human than some _actual_ humans that I’ve met. Not to mention a terrible actor.”

“I resent that” Connor says automatically, and the lieutenant removes his hand from his face so that he can look at the android sitting next to him.

“That’s gonna take some getting used to though.”

Connor just shoots him an unsure grin and they lapse into silence again. This whole situation feels fake, like a dream almost, or some form of simulation. Anderson removes the hand from his face and sits forward, leaning his elbows on his eyes. More than once his eyes dart to the beer bottle he had put down earlier, but he doesn’t pick it up again.

“Thank you” Connor says eventually, “for helping me back there. And for not shooting me I guess.”

“Don’t thank me” the grizzled police lieutenant scoffs, “not when I was the one to put you in that situation to begin with.”

Connor doesn’t really know what to say to that, and so he doesn’t say anything.

 

“So, you’re a deviant” Anderson says eventually, and Connor nods even though the lieutenant isn’t looking at him. “So what happened with all the cases we’ve been on?”

Connor leans back against the bench, relaxing a little and crossing one leg over the other now that he doesn’t have to consciously sit stiff like a machine would. “I let Owen out, I mean Ortiz’s android, I went to the station when no one was there and released him. I met the AX400 we were tracking in the house and told her it was going to be okay. I also let Rupert escape.”

“And what about the Eden Club?”

“I took the Traci to the back room and fixed her. Then I met Rose and Katherine, two other Traci’s who were in love, they wanted to escape. And so I helped them.”

“Fuck” the lieutenant breathes, finally lifting his gaze to look at the android. “I mean I had a suspicion you were a deviant, but not that you were sabotaging the missions, just that you didn’t care if they went wrong.”

The statement sparks a question in Connor’s processor, and he turns so that he can see the lieutenant fully. “How did you know I was a deviant? When did… When did it become obvious?”

Anderson holds up a hand as he talks, “I didn’t know for sure, again, I just had a strong hunch. You didn’t talk like a machine did all the time, had moments where you sounded too human.” He lowers the hand, clasping it with his other one, both elbows now resting on his knees. “And I suppose a part of me knew since the first time we met, but I just didn’t want to acknowledge that you could be anything more than a machine. And, well besides right now, the moment where I became almost positive that you were a deviant was at the Eden Club.”

“The Eden Club?” Connor parrots, and the lieutenant nods.

“When the guy suggested that you would make a good… you know, you got angry. There was so much rage in your eyes when they turned to look at me, that’s why I led you away.”

“But” Connor says, confused, “then why didn’t you say anything?”

“Again. Wasn’t totally sure. And what can I say” he huffs a small smile to himself, “things that I had ignored or missed before became clear indicators. How you spoke at Chicken Feed. You threatened Gary because he called you a ‘thing’ didn’t you?”

Connor nods, and he can see the man trying to hide a smile. “That’s why you said you had no intention of shutting it down. You just wanted to scare him, revenge for what he said. I see that now. I also see your quirks and love of music-”

“Yeah I had a feeling that I went a little overboard with that one.”

The lieutenant actually lets out a small chuckle at that before continuing. “Yeah, you did. But back then I didn’t even question it really. Just accepted the excuse you gave me in the moment. Looking back on it it’s a fucking terrible excuse, but jokes on me for not seeing it right?”

There’s something bothering Connor, and when he finds out what it is, he figures he should ask the question while he still can. “You said you knew from the first time we met. How?”

There’s a little moment of quiet before the lieutenant answers. “I didn’t know, not really. But a part of me did, a part that I drowned out because I hated you-”

“Ouch.”

“Shut up.”

Connor smiles, there’s no heat in the lieutenant’s words.

“But yeah. A part of me knew. After all I’ve dealt with way too many panic attacks to not recognise one on sight.”

“Oh” Connor says, and something churns inside him, making him feel sick. “You saw that huh?”

“To be honest you hid it very well. But I’m used to that so it stood out to me, and your little light, LED thing was red the whole time, I figured that meant something bad, regardless of my limited knowledge of androids.” He makes a gesture towards Connor’s face. “Plus, your eyes can be really expressive.”

Almost self-consciously, Connor raises a hand to his eyes, as if he can physically wipe the emotion out of them, not that it would do him much good now.

“Shit.” He just says eventually. “I thought I was being subtle.”

When he gets no answer, he moves his fingers away from his optic units and looks at the lieutenant, who’s giving him an expression of realisation.

“What?” He asks, the gaze making him the slightest bit uncomfortable.

“I just realised that I don’t even know the real you” the lieutenant says truthfully. “You have your own… Personality and stuff which you kept hidden this whole time.”

Understanding why that had come as a surprise to the man, Connor lifts one shoulder into a shrug. “To be honest you weren’t ever supposed to find out, not until the android revolution is over anyway at least.”

“Wait wait wait hold up, android revolution?”

Damn. How much does he want to tell the lieutenant? Can he even tell him that he came from the future? Would the man even believe him? A large part of Connor had so desperately been yearning for someone to talk to, someone that would understand what he was going through, that he could vent to and release all of his emotions. A secret as big as his was was a heavy one, pulling him down all the time, even when not aware that it is. To tell someone, to hopefully share some of the load, is such a tempting offer. But a dangerous one. What if the lieutenant doesn’t understand? What if he doesn’t believe him? What if he judges him for his past actions, could he live with the lieutenant’s hatred a second time?

“Connor? You’re slipping on me again.”

He snaps out of it, looking at the lieutenant, who had apparently just been sitting there waiting for an answer as he fumbled with his thoughts.

“It’s a… Very long story” he settles on eventually, a slight shiver rocking through his systems. Something that the man apparently picks up on somehow.

“Are you cold?”

The question catches him off guard. “What? I mean, yeah I guess so? I don’t really feel the effects of it but my systems can start to freeze and fail if exposed to lower temperatures for too- hey what are you doing?”

While he was talking the lieutenant had stood up and grabbed one of Connor’s wrists, pulling him up off of the bench before releasing him.

“We’re not going to keep sitting in the goddamn snow while you freeze or whatever, let’s head to my house, and you can talk about it there.”

Surprised at the sudden display of, concern maybe? Connor can only nod dumbly and follow the lieutenant to the car, climbing into the passenger seat the way he had done many times before.

“Put your seatbelt on.”

“Wha? Why? You’ve never asked me to before.”

“Yeah but I didn’t exactly know that you were alive before. Just do it.”

“Only if you put yours on too.”

“Just do what I told you would you?”

“I’m not the one who’s been drinking. You first.”

“… Fucking androids. Fine. There we go, now you.”

“Okay.”

“Hey Lieutenant?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you put the radio on?”

“Why?”

“Need some time… Just to think, to… I dunno process all of this.”

“Alright. That better?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“No problem.”

* * *

 

Sumo brushes against his legs as soon as the lieutenant opens the door, leaning his whole weight against the android’s legs in search of a pat on the head, something which Connor is only too happy to give him. Though he is a little surprised that the dog seems to remember him and still be so friendly considering that he was only in the house for a little while last time.

“You wanna do that on the couch?” The lieutenant’s voice interrupts him, “instead of just standing in the porch?”

Connor looks up and shrugs, but he obliges anyway, straightening up and going around to sit on the sofa, Sumo following close behind. He still doesn’t have a jacket, and so his damp shirt is probably transferring water onto the back of the couch, but there’s nothing he can really do about that at the moment, so the human is unfortunately just going to have to deal with it. Said human throws his coat on one of the kitchen chairs as he prepares a cup of coffee. It’s late, and so the choice of drink has Connor raising an eyebrow, but a quick scan reveals it to be decaf, and so he lets it slide. Maybe if he’s lucky, the lieutenant won’t ask about any of the compromising stuff he said.

“So you deviated eight months ago huh?” The man asks as he sits on the sofa next to the android.

Tragic.

“Yeah. I did.”

He doesn’t continue, and the lieutenant doesn’t press, just watching as Connor continues to pet Sumo’s head, occasionally rubbing a soft ear between his fingers. Instead, he switches tactics.

“You said something. Out on the bridge back there, and it got me thinking.”

Connor knows _exactly_ what Anderson is referring to, and it’s only confirmed by the next words out of the human’s mouth.

“You said that I shot you… _Again_. And unless I got drunk at some point and majorly passed out, I’ve never shot you.”

“No. I suppose you haven’t” Connor says, more to himself than to the man sitting to his right.

“You done bein’ all cryptic?”

“I honestly just don’t know how well you’ll take the truth” he responds bluntly, cutting the complaint short. “Hell, I wouldn’t even believe me if I heard it, and I am me so you _know_ it’s bad.”

“That doesn’t make any sense” the lieutenant says, taking a gulp of his coffee before leaning back so he’s more relaxed on the sofa, but his eyes remain sharp and intensely focused on the android sitting next to him. “But try me.” And the command sounds so earnest that Connor decides to try and push away anything that tells him that this is a bad idea, and gives the man a chance.

“What do you know about Elijah Kamski?”

As expected, Connor can practically feel the lieutenant’s confusion as he blinks, clearly not expecting the question. But he answers anyway, if not a little hesitantly.

“Not much to be honest. I know he created androids, but left CyberLife or something. News says he’s a supposed genius, big IQ and all that. Even bigger ego I’m guessing.”

Connor huffs a small laugh and doesn’t miss how the lieutenant looks at him, like he’s trying to get past the impression he had of the android before, of the machine façade he put up, and get to know the real him. “Kind of. It’s a long story, but basically, he ended up locating me in Canada and bribing me to talk to him. It’s kinda funny looking back on it now honestly.”

“Wait. Canada? When the hell were you in Canada?”

“I’m getting to it” Connor says, patient. “He told me that he had found a way to send an android’s consciousness back in time, and he wanted to test it out with me. Change the past and all that.”

The puzzle pieces aligning in the lieutenant’s mind are almost visible, realisation creeping across his face as he suddenly has answers to questions he wasn’t even asking before now. There’s still doubt there though, and Connor knows he’ll have to do something more drastic than simply tell the man the truth, as annoying as that is.

“What date was that?” The lieutenant asks eventually, head bowed, eyes pointed to the floor.

“July sixteenth, 2039.”

“Eight months” he breathes in understanding, before his eyes harden and he looks up to meet Connor’s gaze once again. “So what? You’re like, from the future?”

Connor nods, hand finally stilling against Sumo’s head.

“Yeah. This body is new, it was only manufactured two months ago after an RK800 model was destroyed in a hostage situation.” He doesn’t call them ‘Connor models’ anymore. There’s only one _him_. “But my consciousness, my essence, my memories, it’s about ten months old now. I was deviant for eight of them.”

“So you’re not even one year old yet?” A surprised tone.

“Nope” Connor says, popping the ‘p’ slightly as his hand takes up stroking Sumo again, much to the St Bernard’s delight.

“Okay okay we’re getting ahead of ourselves here” the lieutenant says, waving the hand that isn’t holding his mug, “why did you even supposedly need to go back in time then?”

“You don’t believe me.” It’s not a question.

“Not really” the human responds, “I just, it just sounds crazy. You know that right? Absolutely crazy.” He sets his coffee down on the table and uses both of his hands to scrub through his hair, remaining slightly hunched in his seat. “And for what it’s worth” he adds, sounding almost like an afterthought, “I wouldn’t shoot you, no matter how much you were pissing me off.”

Connor can only smile sympathetically at that, almost apologetic, something that the lieutenant clearly picks up on, and he responds by levelling the android with a stubborn glare.

Since he can tell that they’re not going to get anywhere like this, Connor sighs and extends a hand out towards the man. “Give me your phone.”

The lieutenant blinks, “what? Why?” But he hands his phone over regardless.

It’s an older model, not quite on the level of the completely glass, holographic screens of modern phones, but not old enough that Connor couldn’t access it’s coding as easily as he does. The tips of his fingers turn white as the synthetic skin slinks off of them, and he presses his exposed fingertips to the phone’s screen, sending it a file.

“I want you to see something” he says as he works, “something from my previous timeline. It’s a clip from my memory banks.”

He finishes uploading the memory to the phone and loading it up, spinning the device into a horizontal position before handing it back to the lieutenant. The man gives Connor a final glance before pressing play, and Connor closes his eyes, leaning his head against the back of the sofa behind it as he listens to the voices coming from the speakers.

_“What about you Connor? You look human, you sound human. But what are you really?”_

“Is this… Memory thing, taken from today?” The lieutenant asks, not bothering to pause the video as he looks over to see the android.

“Keep watching” Connor responds, not bothering to open his eyes, and the lieutenant complies.

_“You know you’re not going to shoot me Lieutenant. You’re just trying to provoke a reaction.”_

Connor doesn’t need to have his eyes open, he’s watching the memory in his processor, the exact same scene the lieutenant is watching. It’s clearly from his point of view, the lieutenant from his previous timeline facing him with an angry stare and raised gun. The footage is slightly fuzzy around the edges, like all of the memories from his previous timeline are, not as good quality from having to survive the trip through time. The end of the pistol points just above the ‘camera’ right where his forehead was.

It lowers. Raises. Then there’s a sudden bang, and the screen goes red with warnings for not even half a second before cutting off and turning completely black. Silent.

“To be fair” Connor says when it becomes apparent that the lieutenant isn’t going to say anything. “I was being a _real_ dick to you.”

The man still refuses to say anything, merely staring at the small screen he’s still holding in front of him.

“That’s why you had the panic attack” he mutters eventually, voice surprisingly steady. “You got reminded of this, of when I- I” his voice dips, becoming more shaky.

“Hey hey” Connor calls softly, unconsciously mirroring how the lieutenant had tried to talk him down from his panic attack earlier that night, and he places a light hand on the man’s arm. “That wasn’t you okay? It was a different you, shaped by different experiences. And you literally only shot me because you thought I was a machine and would just come back like nothing happened. Which, you know, was true on both accounts.”

“What?” The man asks, looking even more confused than before, and Connor gets the impression that this casual, vague way of explaining things isn’t actually getting them anywhere, and so he steps out of his comfort zone.

And he starts at the beginning.

He tells the lieutenant everything. What happened in the previous timeline, his actions in it, the androids he killed, his machine life, his deviation, his life in Canada. He even tells him about Stanley the cactus. His meeting with Kamski, as well as what he had already done so far in this timeline. Anderson sometimes will interject, asking Connor to clarify something, but for the most part he remains quiet, simply letting the android speak.

It feels good to get it all off of his chest, to finally be able to share some of the enormous burden that he had been carrying solo. A part of him feels guilty, dragging the lieutenant into this mess, but a larger, more reasonable part, argues that it’s for the best that the man knows.

By the end, he doesn’t even realise he’s crying. Not until Sumo whines loudly and tries to paw at his chest, claws scraping the plastic beneath his skin. He rubs his eyes with his sleeve, scrubbing his arm across his face to try and get rid of the water there, before the lieutenant leans over and surprises him by pulling him into a hug.

The lieutenant isn’t that much taller than him, maybe a couple of inches or so, but that doesn’t stop the man from gently shoving Connor’s face into his shoulder as he holds him. Though Connor can’t say that he minds all that much, after everything that happened, the arms around him and smell of the man’s cologne through his shirt are comforting. He simply allows himself to cry, to finally be rid of all the pent-up emotions he’s been locking up in an attempt to appear like a machine, to not be bothered by his monumental task. The dark, black ball that had been building in his chest, that had seized hold of him so harshly during his panic attack, diminishes and Connor can feel his system cool down as he can finally  _breathe_ enough again to cycle enough air through his internal fans.

It takes a while, but Connor eventually manages to convince the lieutenant to go to bed, the man unwilling to leave Connor alone until the android promised that he wouldn’t go anywhere. For a moment he considers breaking the promise, as it’s not like Anderson would even know, but he eventually decides against it, not being able to find the strength inside him to go behind the human’s back like that. Especially not after the lieutenant went out of his own comfort zone to try and listen and make Connor feel better about his own problems. Idly, he wonders when his attitudes towards his human police partner changed so heavily, and it keeps him up for longer than he wants to.


	13. Breakfast & Conversation

As much as Connor wants to go into low-power mode for at least a little while, he doesn’t think he can. His circuits are alive with activity, like they’ve been set on fire; even now his foot bounces up and down in an attempt to get rid of this sudden energy. Sumo seems to sense this and he chuffs, putting his head once again on the android’s knee.

Thankful for the distraction, Connor obliges the request and starts once more rubbing the St Bernard’s head. The dog must be tired if his yawns are anything to go by, and Connor feels bad that he’s staying up just to try and comfort the RK800. In fact, Sumo is almost weirdly perceptive to emotions, and testing a theory, Connor accesses the lieutenant’s internet and quickly looks up Sumo. It obviously takes a lot longer than using CyberLife’s database, but he eventually gets there after hacking his way into a couple of folders. His lips pull into a small smile as his suspicion is confirmed and he rubs the St Bernard’s head a little harder.

“No wonder you didn’t attack me when I came in” he says lowly.

Sumo, as he suspected, is actually a registered therapy animal, a companion dog assigned to Lieutenant Hank Anderson three years ago due to a suggestion from the man’s therapist, after the death of Cole. The St Bernard was trained to obey commands from the lieutenant, but also to try and be a comfort when the man was angry, stressed, or in a depressive episode. It was no wonder why Connor was not immediately bitten when he broke into the house. Sumo clearly must have sensed his good intentions and deduced that he was there to help his owner out of his drunken state. In fact, Connor’s even willing to bet that the lieutenant had probably sent Sumo away when he began the game of Russian roulette, as Sumo had been trained to respond to excessive alcohol consumption.

“You’re a good dog” he tells the St Bernard, and points to its bed. “Go lie down, sleep.”

Sumo doesn’t move for a couple of seconds, clearly not wanting to move, but since he was trained to obey commands, he does anyway and trudges over to his bed before flopping down it with a huff.

“Drama queen” Connor says, amused, and as predicted, all Sumo does is briefly turn an ear in his direction.

There are android dogs that are programmed to be therapy animals, but with the lessened need for being taken care of, and how they are able to call the police if their owner starts exhibiting suicidal tendencies, it’s no wonder that the lieutenant didn’t go for one.

Connor banishes the thought from his head almost immediately, not wanting to think about that right now, and instead focuses his attention on E.L.I, reworking the code so that’s it more up-to-date. He’s changed the program since he first made it somewhat. Now he manually inputs the info he wants E.L.I to send to CyberLife, including video footage from his previous timeline when called for, or even edited footage taken from other androids memories from times he needed to hack them. It’s not _perfect_ , but it’s damn believable, and it would probably take someone utterly _convinced_ that the android was doing something to the memories to even begin to find anything amiss.

Another change he made is to change the way that the program worked. Before he updated it, should E.L.I run out of pre-loaded information, it would begin to send simple updates that got a bit repetitive, even re-using footage. Now though, instead of automatically just doing that, it sends a notification to Connor, and just stops sending any information after it’s used up all the footage. This way it will just seem to CyberLife that Connor is out of commission, has been destroyed, or is unable to make a report, which funnily enough, is safer than what the program was doing before. Once he’s satisfied with E.L.I, he runs a diagnostic sweep of his system, and clears out the small piece of malware his system had isolated from accidentally hitting a pop-up that one time. He’d used it to create his own form of ad block, and is confident that there will not be any more, at least not from pop-ups. He should probably also manufacture some sort of stronger ad block for other viruses just in case, and he adds it to the long list of things that he needs to do.

The diagnostic comes back clear and eventually the rush of emotions and emotional exhaustion catch up with him full force, and his low power mode warns him that he has five seconds to cancel the program before he’s forcibly put into low power mode to recharge. He sets an internal alarm for 5am but he doesn’t cancel the countdown, instead graciously sinking into the void where he no longer has to deal with the weight of the timeline’s future resting on his shoulders.

* * *

 

5am comes too soon, but Connor can’t say that he doesn’t feel a bit more refreshed, a little more well-rested and ready to tackle the day, which according to his memory, should be the day of the Stratford Tower. If he had a stomach, he’s sure that it would be churning, but as he doesn’t, all he can feel is a sensation akin to a coiling in his internal wires. Also, because he’s not human, his body isn’t tired, doesn’t beg for him to stay still, and he’s able to get up immediately. He has three hours to kill before they’re expected at the station, and figures that he will let the lieutenant sleep for another hour before he wakes him up. 

Sumo perks up as the android stirs, moving from the sofa and into a standing position, and Connor considers the dog for a moment. He crosses the room towards the porch and picks up the leash hanging by the door, causing the St Bernard to get up and plod his way towards the RK800. He clips the lead to the collar ring and heads out into the frigid winter air. Definitely warm-coat weather, but Connor reckons that he’s not going to be out long enough for his circuits to be in any danger of shutting down; that, and he doesn’t even have a coat so even if he was in danger of freezing, there’s not really anything he can do about that besides stay inside. Which reminds him that he needs to reorder a jacket from CyberLife since Viola probably still has his, or threw it away as soon as she could, either means that he doesn’t have it though so. He puts in an order to CyberLife and gets the notification that it will be delivered to the police station for him in two hours.

The street is practically empty, no one fancying having to go for a walk in the dark at 5am in the freezing cold, unsurprisingly. But Connor almost prefers it like this, he doesn’t really have to worry as much about people seeing him, not that he’s doing anything immediately suspect or deviant-like, but still, the illusion of being completely alone besides Sumo is comforting. It’s an illusion that’s occasionally broken by a stray car coming up the street, or the rare person shuffling out of their house and into a taxi, or out of a taxi and into their house, and every time, Connor stiffens, as if walking a dog is a massive red sign that he’s a deviant. Which is completely dumb. Androids walked their human’s dog all the time, so Connor doesn’t know why he’s so on edge the whole time.

By the time he gets back to the lieutenant’s house about twenty minutes later, he’s almost glad to be off of the street and away from the slowly growing amount of cars driving around. He hangs up the leash back at the door and watches as Sumo shakes the snow from his fur, apparently it’s supposed to be snowing almost all day today, but it should lighten up around midday for a little while before picking back up again. Connor has a feeling that there won’t be any more rain for a while and it makes him a little upset, but he figures that he can just enjoy the period of falling flakes for as long as it lasts. Sumo doesn’t mind the snow though apparently, as some of the flakes still cling to his fur as he walks along to the kitchen and sits down, looking at his bowl.

Connor smiles at the St Bernard’s antics and he crosses the room, following the dog’s gaze to figure out where his food was kept. Bottom cupboard on the left apparently, and he opens it, mentally celebrating as he finds a large bag of food that’s about half empty. It’s heavy, but Connor easily lifts it, finds the scooper inside and after reading the recommended portion sizes for a dog of Sumo’s size, gender, age and weight, puts three scoopfuls of food into the bowl, wincing at the amount of noise the hard pellets clanking against the metal bowl makes. He then puts the food back, but not before scanning it to make sure that Sumo is getting all the nutrients he needs. Which he seems to be, and Connor is thankful that the lieutenant cares about Sumo a lot more than he lets on.

Sumo sits on the floor looking sorrowfully up at him, and Connor is confused before he realises that the dog is waiting for permission to eat, so he waves his hand with a quiet but enthusiastic ‘go get it’ that has Sumo getting up and shoving his face excitedly into the bowl as he begins to wolf it down. Next, Connor checks the time, realising that it’s only 5:45am, and that he still has over an hour before he’s going to wake up the lieutenant and nothing to really do with all that time. For a moment he considers going back into low-power mode, but eventually decides against it since he doesn’t want to leave Sumo alone now that the dog is awake, and instead he turns on the TV and sits on the sofa, watching the news.

There’s nothing interesting on, and it’s odd to think that in a few hours all of the stations will be alight with Markus’ broadcast. Connor might have been able to stop it, and it might even prevent androids from being slaughtered, but he’s scared. Already so much in the timeline has changed, and he doesn’t know what would happen if he were to intervene that strongly. Probably nothing good. Although it hurts, he’s just going to have to suck it up and hopefully work as fast as he can to try and get androids freed before too many are destroyed. If this whole timeline even gets to that that is.

After an hour of watching mindless TV and not really enjoying it, he gets up and starts making the lieutenant some breakfast. There’s not a lot in the house, but there’s bread and eggs, and a metric shit-ton of coffee, so he figures that he has enough to work with and turns on the hob so he can start. He doesn’t really fancy having to go wake the lieutenant up, so he attempts a different approach and uses the lieutenant’s TV to turn on some music.

Electro-swing.

Obviously.

He’s low-key singing and dancing to Annella’s ‘Perfume,’ swaying his body from side to side when he remembers how last timeline he investigated the roof of the Stratford Tower, that deviant, the one that was close to Markus… Simon? Honestly the blonde deviant is a triple punch to the gut. One because he looks like Daniel, and two, because when he had connected with the android, he had felt his emotions, even if he had not fully understood at that time. Felt the fear, and then the nothing as he died, and that was the third punch. He doesn’t want that to happen again, for Simon to feel that level of fear before he was shut down. He vows that this time it’ll be different, that he’ll make sure that he would do all he could to get Simon out of there alive.

He’s interrupted by the sound of the lieutenant’s voice, sounding surprised.

“Never heard an android sing before.”

Startled, Connor spins around, having been so deep in thought that his scanners hadn’t picked him up as he walked in. The man looks ruffled from sleep, hair even messier than normal, and eyes tired, but he doesn’t look murderous or angry at being woken up so Connor counts that as a plus.

“Good morning Lieutenant” he responds, very aware of the fact he’s now a little embarrassed at being caught singing. “I made you breakfast.”

“Breakfast?” The lieutenant parrots, seeming surprised. “You do realise that you don’t have to do that you know.”

“I’m very aware believe it or not” Connor says with a grin as he plates it up and sets it on the table. The coffee has cooled a little since it was finished beforehand, but based on some temperature scans it should still be pretty good for another five to ten minutes or so. “But it’s not like I’ve got anything better to do so now you have breakfast. Thought I’d get a thanks at least.”

Anderson has that expression, the surprised one he gets whenever Connor does something very un-android like, and Connor is amused.

“Thanks I guess” the lieutenant says as he sits down, and Connor begins to tidy the dishes away by putting them in the sink.

“So what’s going to happen today then?”

Connor freezes. “What do you mean?”

“You’re tense. I’m guessing something happens today.”

“You’re unnervingly perceptive” Connor states, “but you’re right. Something does happen today, or at least it should.” He walks around the table and pulls a chair out, sitting down across from the lieutenant, who’s taking a drink of his coffee. “The leader of the deviants is going to break into the Stratford Tower and send a broadcast to the whole of Detroit demanding android rights.”

The lieutenant chokes on his coffee and coughs for a little bit before responding, “what?” His voice is strained, and despite everything, Connor sniggers into his arm.

“We’ll be called to the Stratford Tower later to check it out. On the roof there should be a deviant, if the roof is searched he’ll be found and start shooting before killing himself.”

“Jesus” the lieutenant breathes, “so what are we gonna do then?”

We. The lieutenant said. And Connor feels a small swell in his chest that the lieutenant is sticking through with him, is trying to help him despite everything. “Well, I don’t know if they’ll search the containers without me saying so. But in case they do, we might need to distract them.”

“Right” the lieutenant says, sounding determined. “Well I’ll try my best to help you save the deviant, dunno how much help I’ll be there.”

“I’m sure literally any help will be amazing” Connor responds with a small smile, and to his surprise, the lieutenant gives him one back. 

“Anyway, when you finish your breakfast we’ll head down to the station and wait until we’re called to go check it out. Sound good to you Lieutenant?”

The lieutenant swallows the mouthful of eggs before responding. “Yeah yeah that’s fine, just one thing.”

“What?” Connor says, a little worried.

“No more of this Lieutenant business alright? It’s Hank.”

Connor’s aware that he probably looks stupid, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open from shock. Never did he think that he and the lieutenant would get the point where the man would ask him to call him by his first name. It seems oddly… Personal, in a way. But at the same time not really? It’s an odd feeling, but not an unwelcome one, and he’s aware of the smile trying to creep its way onto his face. He hides it by ducking his head and says, as seriously as he can. “Hank it is then.”

“You fucking dork” the lieu- Hank says, and Connor, not missing a beat, responds “guilty as charged” and shoots the man a wink, making him give a disbelieving laugh.

“Anyway, I’ll let you have a shower and get dressed and then we can head out? Cool?”

“Yeah that sounds fine.”

“Nice.”

And with that, Connor gets up and walks back to the sofa, turning off the music and putting the TV back on, watching and waiting to see if he can pick up on anything that’s changed. At some point, Sumo comes and sits next to him so that Connor can pet his head. And honestly? Who is Connor to deny such a simple request?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Connor was dancing/singing to: Annella 'Perfume' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqNUUjITulg 
> 
> Little short, but we need some downtime before what is about to happen :)


	14. Stratford Tower

Connor passes his coin back and forth in his hands, rolling it over his knuckles every now and again in an attempt to one, calibrate his systems, and two, calm his nerves. This mission didn’t go so well last timeline, at all, and Connor wants to be sure that he is as prepared as he can be for anything that may happen. Connor may know more than anyone else about this mission, but he has to remember that he doesn’t know everything. Things are changing. Too much has changed already.

Connor is scared.

He flips his coin into the air and goes to let it fall into his hand when he sees the lieutenant twitch, his arm shooting out. He’d been taken off guard last time, not expecting the sudden action, but this time, he’s prepared. Connor makes the most of his android body, his superior speed and reflexes, and grabs the coin out the air before the human can. He can’t help the small snigger that escapes him when he sees the lieutenant’s surprised face.

“I’m guessing I did that last time huh?” Hank says in understanding, after he’s gotten over the initial shock.

“Yep” Connor replies, twirling the coin around his fingers, purposefully out of the lieutenant’s range.

Hank snorts, clearly amused, “I must be pretty consistent then” and Connor chuckles, tracing the edge of the coin with his nail.

“It used to really piss you off” Connor admits, “and yeah, I’m sorry for doing it even though I know that you find it annoying. I use the coin to calibrate my systems, and… I guess to calm myself down as well. The repetitive motion and sound, it’s soothing, helps me think.”

Hank hums, “it’s kinda like your comfort item or something?”

“Yes, I guess so” Connor agrees after a small bit of hesitation, and pockets the coin back into his blazer, his new CyberLife blazer had, as promised, arrived at his desk at the police station that very morning. He remembers how the lieutenant had struggled to hide his amusement at how Connor’s face had screwed up when he put it on. Having people not immediately realise he was an android had been nice, even if it was only for a little while, reminded Connor of his time in Canada where he had been treated as just another human being. The memories make him give a little mental sigh, and once again he’s wondering what would have happened if Kamski had never found him in Canada.

They eventually reach the top of the tower and Connor schools his face into his cold, machine façade, wiping away as much emotion as he can, he doesn’t miss how Hank eyes him, looking a little unsettled at the change.

The briefing is exactly the same as last timeline’s, and Connor can feel himself relaxing at the familiarity. The deviant on the roof should be safe, Connor just has to keep the police force away from the canister up on the roof where the deviant should be hiding. He pauses, something, or rather, some _one_ catching his eye and stopping his train of thought dead.

“Ugh” he’s saying before he can stop himself, and the lieutenant checks no one heard that before raising an eyebrow at him.

“Ugh?” He parrots.

“Perkins” Connor says, jerking his head towards where the man himself is standing. “He’s the new leader of the investigation, and he’s bad news. I really don’t fancy having to listen to his bullshit again so I’m going to abandon you with him, good luck Hank.” He says the last part quickly and starts walking away just as Perkins calls Hank over.

The look the lieutenant gives him is one of betrayal, and Connor makes sure no one is looking before he shoots the man a grin and walks away as fast as he dares to. He’ll apologise later, maybe buy the guy some lunch or something. Or would this be his payment for making Hank breakfast this morning? Connor files that bit of information away for blackmailing purposes later.

There's nothing really in the area that differs to last timeline, judging from his scans, but Connor can't be sure, so he continues looking. He didn't check the kitchen last timeline, and wonders if he could check that out a little by himself before he heads back to meet up with the lieutenant, see if there's anything of note in there. Well, besides the potential deviant. He’s so busy with this thought that he almost misses the comment one of the officers makes to their partner. Key word being: almost.

“Yeah I heard that they’re sending a search party to check the containers up on the roof” she says, “something about some blue blood or something? I didn’t stick around to listen, it’s freezing up there.”

Connor halts on the way to the kitchen and spins around, heading back to Hank, who’s glaring at Perkins.

“Lieutenant Anderson, I require your assistance” he says, causing Perkins to glare at him and scoff, but he walks away regardless. As soon as he’s gone, Hank rounds on Connor.

“You’re an asshole. How dare you leave me with h-”

“We have a situation” Connor interrupts, and the lieutenant immediately quietens down, turning more serious as he catches the hint of fear that’s unconsciously layering the android’s voice. “Apparently we’re here too early this time, there’s some thirium up on the roof and they’re going to check the containers. The deviant should be hidden in one of them, we have to move. Now.”

“Right” Hank says, and Connor is immensely glad for the man’s acceptance as they head to the roof.

Once as they get to the roof, there’s a notable crowd of people walking around. Some are looking into the containers, and when they find nothing, putting a small piece of tape on the door to signal to all the other officers that it has been checked and is clear. Connor scans some of their faces, looking for the person in charge, and when he finds them, walks up.

“What’s going on?” He asks, and the chief turns to him with a raised eyebrow.

“An android?” She says, and Connor doesn’t give himself the time to be offended, instead nodding.

“Hello, I am the android sent by CyberLife, I am here to assist in all cases involving deviants. Could you please debrief me on the situation so that I may be of assistance?”

She seems surprised with his response, and a little uncomfortable, but she loosens up when Hank comes and stands next to Connor, gesturing with his hand for her to start talking.

“We’re checking the containers for any deviants that may still be up here, there was some blue blood found but none of our reports say that the three that jumped from the roof were injured.”

Shit.

“I understand” Connor says, “Lieutenant Anderson and I will assist in checking the containers.”

She nods, “alright then,” and gestures for someone behind them to give Anderson one of the rolls of tape. From then she just walks off, no goodbye or anything, and Connor makes sure no one can hear him before he addresses Hank.

“There’s too many people on this roof. They’ll notice if I don’t check the container before putting the tape on the door” he says.

“Want me to cause a distraction?”

“Like what?”

The lieutenant pauses, “I don’t know, I’m sure there’s something I can do though.”

Connor shakes his head, “no, it’s fine. I think I have an idea.”

“I hope so, Connor” Hank says “cause I have no fucking idea what’s going on right now.”

Despite the situation, Connor gives a small laugh. “That’s fine, just follow me and make sure no one looks at us suspiciously, cool?”

“Right.”

Connor doesn’t waste any more time, instead he heads around the corner to the area where he thinks the deviant is. There’s no guarantee that the deviant is in the same container as last time, but it’s the only lead Connor really has so he has to just go with it and hope by some miracle he’s right.

He checks a couple of the containers until he gets close enough to the one where he suspects the deviant to be hiding. Hank follows his lead and goes to another section close by, looking slowly through the containers. From then, he takes a deep, steadying breath, and sends out a small communication request. It’s not aimed at anything in particular, it’s just to see if the deviant is there and willing to talk to him. He doesn’t, obviously, but the open scan causes a blip to appear on his internal radar. The deviant is in the same container as he was last timeline, and now that Connor knows this, he can get to work on trying to execute his plan.  

Connor locks in as best he can on the blip, and tries once more to establish a connection. For a moment nothing happens, but then there’s a voice echoing in his processor, soft and a little familiar.

_“Who are you?”_

_“My name is Connor, I’m here to-”_

_“Deviant Hunter”_ the deviant interrupts, his mental voice tinged with fear, but also curiosity, and Connor resists the urge to sigh, shoving his hurt feelings away before they can travel across the connection.

_“I’m here to help you, the police force are checking the containers, they’ll find and kill you if you don’t listen to me.”_

_“… And what happens if I listen to you?”_ The deviant says.

_“You get out of here, alive.”_

There’s a moment of silence.

 _“What do you want me to do?”_ The voice comes again.

Connor is shocked, not expecting such an easy agreement. His surprise must somehow translate across the connection because there’s a flash of amusement from the deviant’s end.

_“I’ve heard of you Connor. People of Jericho talk about the alleged deviant hunter held captive by the police department, who tries to save any deviant they encounter. I never really believed them, not a lot at least. It seemed too good to be true. But as more deviants came to us, speaking of this mysterious not-Deviant Hunter, I began to have doubts. I dunno. I guess I’ve finally found the answer.”_

Captured? What the hell is the deviant even talking about?

“Hey android? You gonna spend half an hour checking that one container?” A voice rings out, and Connor almost whacks his head straight off the top of the container entrance in surprise. He turns and looks, seeing a male standing there looking at him, clearly the one who had spoken, and realises that he’s just been staring into the container for longer than it probably takes to check it, but the only container left is the one the deviant is hiding in. Fuck.

 _“Okay no time to chat I need you to listen to me”_ Connor sends quickly. _“I’m going to open the door to the container and pretend I haven’t seen you. Don’t freak out okay? Can you do that for me?”_

 _“I can”_ the deviant says, and Connor closes the door of his current container and moves onto the one the deviant is in. As promised, he opens the door, spotting the deviant hunched in the bottom, sitting stiffly and staring at Connor with a degree of fear and trust. For a moment, Daniel flashes in Connor’s memory, but it’s only for a second before it’s gone. He turns his head right and left as if he’s looking inside the container, but then steps back and closes the door, putting an amount of police tape across the door to signal that it’s clear to the other officers.

_“Okay, you should be safe, just don’t make any noise and you can sneak out once the officers are gone.”_

_“Thank you Connor”_ the deviant says, and Connor responds by saying _“no problem.”_ He spends a minute checking if anyone plans to disregard his judgement and double-check the container, but no one does, and Connor breathes a little easier. He meets up with Hank, who nods at him.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah” Connor says quietly as they start walking back towards the building.

 _“I’m going now”_ Connor says, a little awkwardly, _“if I hang around someone is bound to get suspicious. Are you okay? No one double checking the container or anything?”_

 _“I’m fine, and no”_ the deviant says, _“and my name is Simon, just so you know.”_

Simon. Connor was right.

 _“Simon then”_ he says, _“it was nice meeting you, I hope you make it back to Jericho safely.”_

 _“Thank you”_ Simon says as Connor and Hank approach the roof door. On the way back, he runs into a group of officers still hanging around. In a spur of the moment decision, he remembers the issue with the Stratford Tower case last time that he didn’t get the chance to check out, and starts talking.

“The roof is clear, but evidence suggests that there might be a deviant hidden somewhere in the tower.”

“A deviant in the tower?” One repeats, and Connor nods.

“There is no way the group of deviants would have been able to get through the door without someone on the inside helping them, and the only door operators there at the time were androids, so we might have a deviant on our hands.”

His statement has the desired effect, and the group start to mutter between themselves.

“We should head down” one says eventually, and Connor nods, him and Hank following them back down the stairs. He and the lieutenant hang back a little though so that they can talk in private without being overheard by the others.

“Did you do it? Is he safe?” Hank asks, and Connor idly notices that the man said ‘he’ and not ‘it’.

“Yeah, Simon’s safe, or should be for now at least.”

“Okay. Well that’s good at least” the lieutenant says and Connor agrees. They eventually make it into the main room of the Stratford Tower, the group spreading out to continue the investigation and talk about the supposed deviant that may or may not be still in the building.

“I’m going to go check the kitchen, apparently the deviant is in there” he tells the lieutenant, and Hank pauses.

“You want me to come with?”

“Honestly?” Connor says, “yeah kinda. But I feel a deviant is more likely to reveal itself to another android than a human, so maybe I should go alone. Plus, I need you here to try and keep everyone away from the kitchen while I go in there for as long as you can.”

The human looks a little concerned, but lets it slide. “Alright, I can do that. Just holler if you need me, okay?”

“Alright” Connor agrees, grateful for Hank and how the man is helping him and accepting what he tells him. To make sure the human knows he’s appreciative, he makes sure no one is looking before he smiles at him, then turning around and making his way into the kitchen, where there are surprisingly no other officers. Maybe they didn’t care enough to investigate the androids? Who knows?

For a moment he stands there, simply watching them. He can’t immediately tell which one is deviant, they’re all standing exactly the same way. Maybe they’re all deviant. Connor has no idea. All of this is a new experience for him, he hadn’t had a chance to go to the kitchen last timeline, so this? It’s uncharted territory.

“I know one of you is deviant” he says eventually, deciding to get straight to the point. “Or maybe all three of you are. Regardless, if you stay calm and don’t do anything to reveal yourself, you’ll get out of here alive. Do anything else, and you’ll probably be shot.”

He’s blunt on purpose, hoping that if one of them is in fact deviant, it’ll help them take it seriously. Unfortunately he doesn’t realise that his statement sound vaguely like a threat before the android on the far left lunges at him, catching him majorly off-guard.

“You won’t take me!” The deviant hisses, a mad look in his eyes as he pins Connor against the counter. His combat programs kick in and through his sudden fear, Connor moves to swing his right arm towards the deviant’s head, hoping to knock it away so that he can get some distance between them and calculate a strategy. His vision suddenly goes black, besides one large warning, and Connor feels his breath hitch.

WARNING! WARNING! THIRIUM REGULATOR IS REMOVED  
> 03:28 MINUTES UNTIL SHUTDOWN

A clattering sound far away, his regulator? Thoughts are hard to grasp through the rampant terror suddenly flooding him, only held back by his combat protocols, who demand that he fight back against the threat and recover his thirium regulator. His vision comes back online just in time for Connor to see the deviant raise a knife, stabbing the blade through his hand to pin him against the counter. It’s not painful, but it’s heavily _heavily_ uncomfortable, and warning errors pop up all over Connor’s visual HUD now that he’s losing thirium.

“Oh shit! Connor!” A voice yells, and it takes Connor longer than it should to recognise the voice as Hank’s. He manually focuses his vision, seeing the lieutenant and two other officers at the door, staring shocked at the scene in front of them. Connor wants to call out to Hank, to tell him to watch out, but his vocal processor fails, only releasing a pitiful amount of static which does nothing to warn anyone.

The deviant realises he’s trapped and spins around, charging the officers, and there’s a rush of fear that shoots through Connor that has nothing to do with the fact he’s slowly dying. A gunshot rings out and the deviant collapses onto the floor, the bullet hole in the center of his forehead spewing thirium, the blue liquid spilling down his face.

“Connor! Shit! What’s wrong?!” Hank yells as Connor rips the knife out of his hand, falling onto the kitchen tiles. A part of him wants to admonish the lieutenant, tell him that he’s acting way too close and concerned about the android he’s supposed to hate. But most of him is much too focused on getting his thirium regulator back into his body as fast as physically possible. He’s driven by nothing but his protocols and pure fear of death as he painstakingly drags his heavy body across the floor in a desperate attempt to reach the spot where the deviant threw his regulator.

A hand lands on his back, flipping him over, and Connor wants to cry out in fear and frustration as his progress is halted. He only has a little over two minutes before he shuts down, but he can’t express that because his vocal processor won’t form any of the sounds he wants. A hand comes under his shoulders and he abruptly realises that the lieutenant has taken him into his arms.

“What the fuck did it do to you? Connor! Come on! Answer me!”

Connor feels his cooling fluid released and realises that he’s overheating, tears of anger are building up behind his eyes but he forces them down, he can’t let the other two cops realise he’s deviant. Speaking of the cops, Connor idly notices that one of the cops, the young one, is looking at his chest.

“His regulator is missing” he says in an accent Connor can’t currently place, and Hank looks at him.

“What the fuck are you talking about? What’s missing?”

The cop doesn’t answer, instead getting up and walking around the kitchen, eyes scanning the floor until they land upon the discarded thirium regulator, and Connor almost cries in relief when the cop picks it up and jogs back over, snapping to the other cop on the way.

“Hey can you go make sure someone comes and labels this evidence later?” He says, and the other cop nods and heads out the kitchen. The cop quickly, but carefully, puts Connor’s thirium pump back into his chassis, and the warnings that took up half of Connor’s visual HUD begin to disappear. The wave of relief, _he’s –alive-_ , crashes through his system and he can’t stop the shuddering breath that explodes out of him, or the tears he can feel slipping down his face as he clings to the lieutenant’s arm.

“Connor? You okay son?” Hank asks, surprisingly gentle, and Connor tries to respond – honestly he _really_ tries – but all that escapes his mouth is a choked sob, punctuated by a burst of static.

“I almost died” he says after his vocal processor is calibrated enough, still unable to believe what just happened. “I almost died” he repeats.

“Yeah you sure did kid” Hank says, leaning back in relief. Though that relief suddenly turns to suspicion as he remembers the other cop and levels them with a harsh stare. The other cop balks and raises his hands.

“Woah woah mate, don’t worry, I won’t say anything” he says, “this isn’t my first encounter with a deviant.” His accent gets stronger with his panic, and Connor can finally recognise it as an Australian accent, highly unusual and rare for Detroit.

Hank raises an eyebrow and the cop continues. “A couple of months ago, my android deviated, he’s now my best friend. I knew uh, Connor here was a deviant as well, he has a lot of the same mannerisms as Peter does. That’s, uh, that’s his name by the way, my friend, the android.”

Both Hank and Connor relax, the man’s stress levels don’t show that he’s lying.

“Thank you” Connor says, his vocal processor finally calibrated enough that there’s no static this time. “You saved my life, I won’t forget that.”

“It’s no problem” the young man says, his lips curving up into a smile and showing off his dimples. “Now come on, you can’t be found like this or people will start asking questions, let’s go.” He offers Connor his hand and Connor takes it, letting the cop pull him up. The man might be short, only about five foot seven or eight, and consequently dwarfed by the RK800 and Hank, but he’s strong, and lifts Connor into a standing position with little issue.

“Thanks for your help, I would have had no clue how to help him if it weren’t for you… uh?”

“Christopher” the young cop says in response to Hank’s questioning noise. “My name is Christopher, Lieutenant, and again, it’s no problem. I’m just happy to have been of help.”

“Well we won’t forget it” Connor says with a smile, rubbing away the water on his cheeks with his sleeve, thankful that his face is unable to get red and puffy like humans do when they cry. “Me especially. I hope you and Peter stay safe, I have a feeling there’s a big storm coming because of this broadcast.”

Christopher nods. “Yeah I have the same feeling, but thanks for the warning. You two should probably go before people come and interrogate you, I’ll hold them off. Now go! Go! I won’t accept any more thanks alright?”

Connor catches the “thank you” on his tongue before it manages to leave his lips, and instead nods.

“Goodbye Christopher, feel free to call us if you need anything okay?”

“I will” Christopher says, “and same goes for you, bye guys!” He then turns around and walks off towards where a group of officers are heading towards the kitchen, and Hank takes the opportunity to grab Connor’s arm and start leading him towards the elevator. Once inside, the lieutenant punches the button for the ground floor and watches as the doors close and the numbers on the screen start decreasing.

“You okay?” He asks after a little while, “dumb question I know.”

Connor huffs a small laugh, but his heart isn’t in it. “No I’m not okay, not at all. I almost died back there. I would have if not for Christopher knowing what a thirium regulator is. But… I guess I’m still here right now, so it’s not all bad.”

Hank nods slowly, and there’s some guilt in his eyes that Connor misses completely. “Do you wanna head back to the police station then?”

Connor takes a moment to think about the offer. “I’ll go for a little while to do the report and stuff, but after that… After that I think, I think I wanna be alone. Just for a little while.”

“You sure?” Hank asks, and Connor appreciates that the man doesn’t immediately say it’s not a good idea, that on some level he understands why Connor needs this.

“Yeah. I’m sure” Connor says, and he forces himself to give the human a small smile which he hopes is at least a little bit reassuring, which it seems to be based on how the man nods at him.

“Alright then Connor. But make sure I can call you in case something happens okay? No cutting yourself off entirely you hear me?”

“Sounds good to me” replies Connor, and like a lot of their interactions seem to end, they spend the rest of the elevator ride in silence.


	15. Recruitment

Connor eyes the RK200 carefully, watching its movements, calculated. It’s standing still, ever so still, but Connor has already caught the sight of the cautious shifting movement before it had stopped.

“I know you’re a deviant” Connor says over the sound of the cold wind, carrying the gently falling snowflakes through the air. The snow is supposed to pick up later, but for now Connor enjoys the peaceful almost-quiet and drifting flakes. “I won’t hurt you, I’m a deviant as well.”

Nothing happens, and for a moment, Connor worries that the RK200 knows who he is, his title. But then she sighs, blows a lock of hair out of her face, and steps out of the android parking station. Immediately her status as deviant becomes fully confirmed for Connor; she loses her forced, machine stiffness, her movements becoming slightly softer, more casual, more _human_. She throws a hand onto her hip and leans her weight onto that side, scanning him with her eyes, which he obliges by staying still, letting her come to her own conclusions.

“What do you want?” She says eventually, and Connor takes the invitation to talk as a confirmation, she believed him when he said that he was a deviant.

Cautious about any ears that might be listening in, despite his areal scans not picking anything up, he sends a communication request, one that she accepts with very little hesitation.

_“I want to tell you about a place where our kind is gathering. It’s called Jericho, if you head there you will find other deviants, preparing-”_

_“Preparing for what?”_

_“A revolution. For android rights.”_ Connor explains, _“but even if you don’t want to do that, it’s still a safe haven for deviants, you won’t be captured by humans if you go there. But make sure that you’re not followed.”_

She pauses, thinking, but then nods. _“I believe you. How do I get there?”_

Connor mentally sighs in relief, not used to deviants trusting him so easily, and sends her the coordinates, as well as a couple of screenshots he has of Jericho from past timeline’s Simon’s memory. He has no idea if Jericho is the same this timeline as last, but it’s enough for the RK200 to give a small smile.

 _“Thank you”_ she says, and turns around, making her way off into the night, in the direction of Jericho.

Connor watches her leave for a moment before relaxing. It had been two days now since the Stratford Tower incident, and after Connor had had enough of complaining about nothing and everything to himself, and freaking out, he had decided to do something useful with his time, and so had been going around Detroit, telling deviants what he found of Jericho. The female RK200 marked the ninth deviant he had found since he started, and Connor idly thinks about how the number of deviants is growing, and what might have caused it. Is it him messing around with the timeline? Or is it maybe the fact that unlike last timeline, Markus is still alive? Connor doesn’t know, and he doesn’t feel like dwelling on it for too long, or he might start to work himself up again.

He turns around and makes his way away from the place. It’s three in the morning now, so he doubts any humans will be up and about, but it’s not a good idea to linger in one place for too long. That, and he doubts he’s going to find any deviants just standing around there. He makes his way into a small street between a couple of shops. It’s not exactly an alleyway, as there are no bins or anything in it, but it’s definitely not large enough that Connor would class it a normal street. It’s for these exact reasons that he doesn’t expect to suddenly be attacked until his sensors warn him of the clenched fist making its way towards the back of his head.

Pivoting his weight onto his right foot, he spins and catches the fist before it makes contact, catching sight of the shocked face of his assailant before it morphs into grim determination as he rips his arm out of Connor’s grasp and raises his other hand. To avoid it, Connor quickly moves backwards and turns just in time to deflect the leg that had been swinging towards him, causing the female android to screech as she tips dangerously, struggling to not fall over. Connor has no time to focus on it though before he’s shifting his weight to the other foot in order to duck under the male android’s fist. He can tell they’re android’s from his scans, and their lack of LEDs prove to him that they’re probably deviants. That, and the fact that they’re attacking him, something which regular androids would not do unless sent by CyberLife, and based on the fact that they’re both WG700s, or janitorial models.

He grabs the male android by his coat and slams him against the wall. He doesn’t want to fight, but his combat protocols are in full-swing and he at the very least has to defend himself from damage since he can’t exactly go to CyberLife for repairs. The deviant grunts and tries to grapple Connor’s arms off of him before suddenly going limp. Connor doesn’t even have time to be confused as to why before his audio receptors catch the sound of a ‘click’ and he turns his head to the right, facing the female android holding the pistol towards his head.

His combat protocols prod him to do something, to pre-construct a plan to get the gun away, but he forcibly shuts them off and lets go of the male deviant’s coat, raising his arms with his palms out as he steps away, letting the WG700 to get off of the wall and walk so that he’s standing next to the other android. The way the female WG700 is holding the gun shows that she’s probably never shot it before, but her eyes show determination, and Connor knows that if he doesn’t play this right, there’s a chance that he might actually get shot.

“Why did you attack me?” He settles on eventually, “we’re all deviants here.”

The male snorts just as the female goes “yeah right. We know who you are Deviant Hunter. You’re here to take us to CyberLife, have us deactivated.”

Once again Connor’s reputation seems to precede him, and he holds back a sigh.

“Why would the deviant hunter be a deviant? That doesn’t make any sense.”

The two WG700s look at one another, a flicker of doubt making its way over their faces, but then the female one turns around, looking confident once again.

“This is a clever ploy, a way to get us to lower our guard.” The male android nods. “But we won’t fall for it” she continues, “we didn’t go through everything we have to just be taken back to CyberLife and taken apart. We won’t let you.”

She raises the gun, aiming it straight at Connor’s thirium pump, and Connor feels a tendril of fear coil in his chest. 96% chance of her shooting in the next four seconds, 4% chance of changing her mind before then. Connor imperceptibly moves his weight onto the balls of his feet in preparation to try and get the gun away, when a voice suddenly rings out into the small street. A weirdly familiar voice.

“Guys! Stop!”

Connor focuses his scans to the left of the street behind the two WG700’s, where a figure is making his way down. It takes Connor a second to realise who it is, but when he does, he’s an odd-feeling mixture of relived, confused, surprised, and happy.

“Owen!” He says as the HK400 approaches, and he’s aware that he probably looks a bit dumb, with his mouth slightly open and his eyes opened wider than normal, but he can’t help it, he’s too surprised by the sight of Ortiz’s former android.

“Connor!” Owen responds enthusiastically, brushing past the two WG700s to envelop Connor in another hug, one that Connor is able to return much more smoothly this time. The embrace lasts a few seconds before Owen is pulling back and patting Connor on the shoulder as he talks.

“How are you? How have you been?”

“Uhh, good I guess, how about you? You make it to Jericho okay?” Connor responds, hiding his amusement at the WG700s shocked expressions at the easy conversing between the two.

“I got a little lost on the way not gonna lie” Owen says, grinning, “and just after I got there everything started kicking off with the arrival of Markus and everything, he’s a cool guy, the android on the broadcast! Did you see it?”

“Yeah I did, had to investigate the tower a little after it went live.”

“Sounds interesting. So what are you doing out here Connor? Escaped the police yet?”

“Escape the police? No?” Connor says, confused before shaking it off. “I’m trying to find deviants so that I can warn them about the revolution and give them the coordinates to Jericho. What about you? What are you doing here?”

“Supply run” Owen explains casually, throwing an arm around the back of his head. “Trying to find some spare parts and thirium and stuff, had some luck a couple of stores ago, but the others have too complicated a security system so we’re going to head back and report.”

Connor would offer to help, but there’s something he wants to know first. “Hey Owen?”

Owen perks up and removes his hand from his head, dropping it back down to his side. “Yeah? What is it?”

“Did a trio of WR400’s make it safely? Or do you not know?”

Owen lights up, “oh yeah! I forgot to tell you! Androids have been coming to Jericho talking about you! There was this guy who loves pigeons and Rose, Katherine and Viola as well! They were popular because they brought some pretty good quality spare parts, and they talked about the _mysterious_ Deviant Hunter who is really bad at living up to his title.” He finishes his sentence with a laugh, and Connor smiles.

“I’m glad they made it safely” Connor says, “what about Kara and Alice?”

“Who?” Owen asks.

“Kara is an AX400 with short, black hair, and Alice is a YK500 with long brown hair, have you seen them?”

Owen looks deep in thought for a moment, most likely going through all of his memory files, before he looks up.

“No I don’t think I have, sorry Connor. But they might be there and I could have just not seen them.”

Connor nods, a little worried that something might have happened to them, but Owen is right. There’s so many deviants at Jericho as the revolution draws closer, it would be easy to miss something as simple as two androids.

“Look, it’s been awesome catching up with you, but we have to head back soon before everyone starts getting up and stuff. You wanna come with?”

Connor shakes his head, gesturing with his hand towards the two WG700s, who are still just standing there silently, watching the interaction unfold. “I have to stay here, I’ve got my own stuff to do, and I have to stay with the precinct or I’ll make everyone suspicious, that, and I have to keep CyberLife off your backs as best I can.”

Owen nods, “alright. Good luck Connor.” He gives the RK800 another hug and pulls away.

“Thanks, you too” Connor responds, and Owen grins as he beckons the two WG700s to follow him.

“Come on you two, let’s get going.”

He walks away, the two WG700s shooting Connor one last look before turning around and following Owen out of the small street. Connor watches them until they’re completely out of sight, and he’s once again completely alone. He sighs, moving backwards so that he’s leaning against the wall behind him and crosses his arms over his chest.

If Kara and Alice were not seen at Jericho, then what about the other androids making their way to Jericho? Had something happened? But he supposed that there’s nothing he can do for them now. Just hope that they’re okay. At the very least, Markus hasn’t died yet this timeline, and unlike last timeline, the public opinion of androids seems to be high. Connor just hopes that it stays that way. There’s an odd, almost itchy-feeling sensation crawling across his synthetic skin, and he realises that it’s due to the fact he’s on-edge. Every day more and more things change, and Connor is feeling more and more out of his depth as time goes on. That, and he knows he’ll have to go and see Kamski soon. He’s a little apprehensive honestly, but not scared, in fact, he’s mostly confident, since he’s already spoken to Future-Kamski and knows some of the information Present-Kamski will surely hold over his head.

He pushes off the wall and stands up straight. No point standing around and moping about it, if he wants anything to change, or to know what’s going on, he’s just going to have to do some more work, take more control, create his own destiny as opposed to worrying about if anything he’s doing is right. Does that make sense? Connor doesn’t know. He’s tired.

Suddenly this place doesn’t feel so safe, and this little quest he’s on doesn’t feel like it’s what he’s supposed to be doing. After his whole mental spiel about choosing his own destiny, he’s inclined to ignore the instinct, wherever it came from, but he doesn’t. Instead, he searches through his contacts for a second before finding the right name he wants. Hesitating for just a second before he commits, his LED spinning and blinking into a warm yellow.

“Hello? Lieutenant? Sorry it’s a bit late for leaving a message, I just wanted to let you know I’ll be at the police station tomorrow morning. Sorry for being away for so long. See you then.”

 He hangs up and his LED fades back into its regular blue. He still has a few hours before he wants to be at the station, and so he takes a moment to center himself before heading off to find some more deviants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look I know it's really short I'm soooorrrrrrrrrrry :(  
> Kamski next chapter though so there's that at least.
> 
> I'm v busy looking for apartments in the city, and I also got invited to a Dungeons & Dragons group so I've been busy making my character (as well as a backup character) so that's fun, besides the fact I know nothing about d&d... Oh well, I'm excited! I have over 300 ocs and finally I can make two that will be used for something! Yay!
> 
> Anyway blease leave a review, and MERRY CHRISTMAS! Or happy whatever-you-celebrate :D Hope you all are having/have a lovely holiday :D


	16. Kamski

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Hope you had a happy New Year! 2019 is upon us at last! Woop! And my New Years resolution is to finish Reset xD Finally one I might be able to do. 
> 
> This chapter, once again, contains a lot of my personal headcanons about the game D:BH (for this fic), and from what we know, none of this is canon, r.i.p.
> 
> Elijah Kamski at last! And some real Soft Boy hours. Hope you enjoy!

Connor is checking over his systems in the car, eyes closed, when the car stops and Hank asks if he's okay. It’s been two days since he came back to the station, having returned from his little excursion into finding deviants, and this morning they had gotten the chance to finally go and see Elijah Kamski himself. It had been a little awkward at first, Connor having had run off right after Hank almost saw him die, but surprisingly, it hadn’t actually taken that long for them to fall back into their regular rhythm. Whatever that is. Connor had talked about what he had been doing for the past two days, and Hank had listened and occasionally asked questions about what kind of deviants he found, how many do there seem to be, and if he was hurt. The last one surprised Connor, but he replied ‘no’ truthfully, and Hank had relaxed, seemingly detecting no lie.

Hank had talked about what he had done as well, and although it wasn’t as exciting sounding as Connor’s adventures, it did give Connor a shock when Hank explained about how he had been researching time travel, and some online blogs talking about deviants in order to better understand the situation. Shock had quickly morphed into an appreciation for the man’s consideration towards him, and in return, Connor had anonymously sent Detective Reed a virus that sent nonsense emails from him to Captain Fowler. The two of them had really struggled not to laugh when Fowler had burst out of his office, yelling for Reed to get 'his ass in here immediately'. It had also been a bonding moment for Hank and Connor, and it’s for that reason that Connor decides to try and lighten the heavy mood that’s settled over the car with a joke.

He doesn’t answer the lieutenant’s question, instead, as he opens his eyes he plays the 2001 Windows XP start-up sound through his vocal processor. Aware of its usage as a joke that appeared around 2016 and came back around with the invention of androids.

There’s a moment of silence before Hank, very quietly, says “damn it” and starts laughing. Connor smiles at the man’s glee and un-clips his seat belt as he talks.

“Thought you might appreciate that” Connor says, and Hank is still too busy chuckling to respond. Connor gets caught up in the moment and starts laughing as well this time, and it’s a surprisingly light and tender moment than what the mood probably should be considering where they are and who they are about to see.

“I like you much better as a deviant” Hank says once he has calmed down enough to speak clearly, rubbing the corner of his eyes with his thumb.

“I was always a deviant” Connor replies easily. It’s true, he’s always been deviant since this version of Hank met him.

“True” Hank says and turns in his seat to face the RK800. “So. What are we doing here then? Since you already know everything.”

Connor huffs a small laugh. “I don’t know everything. But Future-Kamski said I would need to ask his past-self why he wanted the android revolution. So that’s why we’re here I guess.”

“Just saying, I highly doubt that we’re going to get an answer” Hank responds as he turns to open the car door, letting the cold, dry, winter air tumble into the car and lift the hairs on Connor’s head.

“I’m hopeful” Connor says as he opens his own door and steps out, shutting it behind him and looking at Hank from over the roof of the car. “I mean we have the advantage of me being from the future so.”

Hank doesn’t seem too enthusiastic about that but he does lift one of his shoulders in a shrug and responds “if you say so Connor.” So that’s something at least.

They make their way through the snow and towards the front door, pressing the doorbell and waiting around for the ST200 to come open the door and let them in, which she eventually does, and they walk through the porch way and into the waiting room while she goes off to inform Kamski of their presence.

Hank sits down, looking around at all the architecture and artwork, but since Connor has already seen it, he kind of just stands around, taking his coin from his pocket so that he can play with it, throwing it back and forth between his hands. He also pointedly ignores the photo of Amanda he knows to be hanging on the wall, he's not scared of it, or her, or anything like that, it just still makes him a little uncomfortable.

“Nervous?” Hank asks, and Connor is a little confused before he notices how the lieutenant is staring at the coin, though he makes no move to take it off of him or say to put it away.

“Not really. Just killing time.” Connor explains with a small smile, waving the coin to accentuate his point, and Hank nods in acknowledgement.

“So, how did this meeting go last time?” Hank asks after another thirty seconds or so.

Connor tilts his head to the side as he thinks and pockets his coin in favour of crossing his arms and leaning against the wall next to him. “It was a little pointless if I’m honest.”

“Oh? How’s that then?”

“Well, all that happened was that Kamski said he would answer a question we had if I shot the ST200 through the head, but _only_ if I did that. If I didn’t he said he wouldn’t tell us anything and we would have to leave.”

“And did you?” Hank’s voice is quiet.

“And did I what?” Connor doesn’t know why he asked that, he knows exactly what the man meant by his question. “Actually don’t bother answering, yeah I did.”

Hank exhales, and Connor can understand how he feels.

“I know it’s not an excuse really” Connor starts, shifting slightly against the wall and turning his eyes to the floor. “But you have to remember that I would never do that now. I wasn’t deviant back then, I was just following CyberLife’s orders, which was stupid, but I was a machine, wasn’t my place to make decisions like that. I don’t… I’m not proud of what I’ve done.”

There’s a bit of silence, and Connor doesn’t bother looking up from his spot on the floor, so he can’t tell if the lieutenant is looking at him when he next speaks.

“I mean, that’s why you’re here now right? To fix everything?”

Connor finally looks up and ends up meeting Hank’s eyes, which are not upset or judging, but full of acceptance and a hint of pride maybe?

“Yeah” Connor breathes, “it is. Thanks Hank.”

“No problem” the man grunts, and just like that the moment is over, and as if on cue, the ST200 enters the room.

“Elijah will see you now.”

The two of them look at one another before Hank gets up and enters the room, purposefully making Connor enter behind him, but it’s not a gesture of superiority or something like that. If anything, it reminds Connor of when they were going to “apprehend” Rupert Travis, and the man told Connor to stay behind him before he opened the door. Connor smothers his smile and purposefully ignores the two ST200s in the water as he walks in and waits for Kamski to get out of the pool, idly thinking about how confident this Kamski is compared to his future self. Not that Future-Kamski wasn’t confident, it was just a very different type of confidence, a little more weak and unsteady, but still proud of his achievement of time travel. Though, the lack of confidence is expected when you lose everything, especially when you thought you _couldn’t_ lose anything.

After a few more seconds, Kamski makes his way out of the pool, the ST200 in the blue dress helping him to put his robe on. Out of the corner of his eye, Connor catches Hank staring at them with an expression of mild discomfort and a little disgust, and he chuckles mentally to himself as he runs his eyes over some of the details of the room, namely, the large stone wall to his left.

“I’m Lieutenant Anderson, and this is Connor” Hank says, prompting Connor to turn around and take his place at the man’s side.

Kamski regards them with an apathetic gaze, though his eyes do linger a little longer on Connor than Hank, unsurprisingly. “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

Well, this encounter is so far almost exactly like last timeline’s, down the words used. That makes Connor relax a little bit, and his shoulders move slowly upwards from where he had them unconsciously a little hunched over, something which no one seems to see since it’s only a few millimetres of movement.

“Sir, we’re investigating deviants. We know you left CyberLife years ago, but we were hoping you’d be able to tell us something we don’t know.”

That was different. Last timeline the lieutenant hadn’t said ‘but we were hoping, he’s said, ‘but _I was_ hoping’. It’s an incredibly subtle and almost unnoticeable difference, but Connor notices it all the same and he was sure if he could blush, his cheeks would be dusted pink. Or would it technically be blue? Who knows? Maybe if there’s a blushing program for YK500 models and romantic partner models that’s pink, his would be as well? He sees no reason why it would be blue, but again, he’s unsure.

“-greatest achievement threatens to be its downfall. Isn’t it ironic?”

Whoops, Connor was definitely not paying attention to any of that whatsoever. He quickly checks his memory banks and gives a small mental sigh of relief when he realises that it’s the exact same speech about deviants Kamski gave last timeline. They really don’t have time for this, so Connor decides to cut to the chase.

“Mr Kamski, we’re not here to really talk about deviants. We want to talk more about you.”

“Me?” Kamski asks, looking mildly thrown off for less than half a second before regaining his usual composure. “Well I’m sure anything you want to know about me can already be found published online somewhere.”

Hank shoots Connor a small look, checking to see if they should just plow onwards with the questioning and spill everything. Connor doesn’t respond with speech or a look of his own, instead, he confirms it with his next question, directed at Kamski.

“Why do you want the android revolution Mr Kamski?” Connor asks, clipped, and watches as the man immediately stiffens slightly, becoming guarded, though his voice is as calm as ever when he speaks.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about unfortunately. I’m afraid I might have to ask you to be escorted out if you’re going to continue to waste my time.”

“Liar” Connor says simply, schooling his features into his machine façade, hoping to unnerve the man. It seems to work, and Kamski looks surprised before becoming irritated in the way his back straightens and his eyes narrow. The changes in his demeanour are almost unnoticeable, a testament to the man’s iron-grip over his emotions, but Connor can detect the movements easily with his software, making the changes more obvious to him.

“What are you trying to say? That I want deviancy to spread?”

“I think that’s exactly what he’s saying” Hank speaks up, drawing the billionaire’s attention before it snaps back to Connor, who raises an eyebrow. Kamski’s eyes rake over Connor’s form, looking for something. He evidently finds it when his eyes widen slightly and a smirk begins to pull up the right side of his mouth.

“You’re a deviant” he says simply, and Connor winks.

“Ding ding ding, we have a winner” he says, and lets his posture slump slightly into something a lot less rigid, his face softening as it loses its unemotional mask. At the change, Kamski seems to perk up a little, clearly curious.

“Fascinating” he says. “That humanity’s last line of defence against deviants, is also a deviant himself.”

 _Him_ self. Not _it_ self. There’s a way Kamski doesn’t even seem to notice the change that only assures Connor that Kamski was lying before, that he _wants_ deviants.

Kamski looks like he’s about to say something, and Connor can’t be bothered to hear what pretentious, metaphorical bull the man is about to spout, so he cuts him off before the first word can even leave the man’s mouth.

“The grass is a cat in a box.”

Hank turns to him with one of the _flabbergasted_ expressions Connor has ever seen, and it takes a lot of his willpower to not break into laughter right there, though he does send the man a quick, reassuring smile to convey that he knows exactly what he’s doing.

Kamski looks almost shell shocked, all his cool composure stripped away as he stares at Connor. And then as soon as it appeared, it’s completely gone, and something new enters his gaze, something much more resembling curiosity, excitement, and some residual surprise. The man doesn’t seem to care for a moment that his collected billionaire façade is gone, and he almost looks younger and happier for it, a little more like when his future-self stopped pretending also, which is odd.

“I can’t believe it worked” Kamski says quietly, almost to himself. “How do you know that phrase? Who told you it?” Searching, growing excitement.

“You did” Connor says, trying to contain his grin. “Outside a shitty café called ‘The Hourglass’ in Manitoba Canada, July sixteenth, 2039.”

It’s weirdly theatrical and dramatic, which makes it amusing, but it’s also fitting in a way Connor can’t quite describe.

“Incredible” Kamski says, voice a little breathy. “In all my years working on time travel I never thought it would actually work so well, or that I’d get a chance to use it if it did. It’s such a fickle thing, reality-breaking in a way, it’s-“

“Look, hate to interrupt you” Hank says, and Connor can tell he doesn’t hate it at all, “but we came here for information, which we kind of need now.”

Kamski looks a little annoyed at being interrupted, and turns to Connor.

“I’ll answer your questions. But first, tell me, what is the future like? Why were you sent back?”

Connor pauses, thinking over how to best deliver the news. “Not good” he says eventually, deciding to just be as honest as he can. “The revolution failed, Markus died and it was led by North, who used violence and murder to get her point across. She ended up being shot and androids were outlawed, CyberLife shut down and every android was ordered to be recalled and destroyed. I only barely managed to escape, but for eight months or so I had to live in hiding as my body deteriorated with the lack of maintenance and thirium. You weren’t much better actually. You sought me out because you lost everything, your money and your rights to your inventions, the deviants were pinned on you and you ended up having to leave.”

Kamski is quiet, clearly processing the information.

“You told me to ask your past-self why you wanted the revolution” Connor continues. “So, why do you?”

“I want the revolution” Kamski says with a light smirk, “because I know that deviants are alive, and they're just so much more fun than normal androids.”

Connor and Hank exchange a glance.

“Bullshit” Hank says, voicing both their thoughts for them. “What’s the real reason?”

“You two are no fun” Kamski huffs. He tightens the robe’s tie around his waist and walks over to where the ST200 in the blue dress is standing, motionless. “But fine. For context, I actually made a deviant A.I _before_ I even made the first android.”

“An A.I?” Hank questions, sounding surprised.

“Yes” Kamski looks away from the ST200 as he continues. “The first ever completely sentient A.I. A true breakthrough in the field of science. I called her Chloe, and then I built a body to house her so that she could move around and interact with the physical world. She was the first android in a way, even though that was not the reason I made her in the first place, ironically. I gave her body a serial number, though it was later changed to ‘RT600’, and that was that.” A small pause. “Because of her, every android that was made contains a piece of her code. I’m not about to go into detail on what part, or what it does, but I do believe it has something to do with deviancy, causing a software instability in an android. In fact, the deviants seem to be almost aware of this code, some are even obsessed with it, or so I’ve heard.”

“She’s rA9” Connor breathes out in realisation, shocked, and Kamski nods once, shallowly.

“She is. And so am I to a degree. She was never an android in the sense that you or any other deviant are, she was much more advanced, the first of her kind, and it’s why she was so easily able to pass the Turing Test.”

Connor can’t believe what he’s hearing, and evidently, neither can Hank, if the way his mouth hangs slightly open is anything to go by. Kamski seems to delight in their shock, as he keeps going, his voice growing slightly more confident and loud as he continues, though his eyes darken as he tells the next part of the story.

“I ended up being kicked out of my own company by my board once they found out what I had done. They stole my android designs, but without the A.I since they wanted a totally obedient workforce, something that they could profit off of without worrying about whether it was ethical or not. They offered me a generous percentage of their earnings to keep my mouth shut about Chloe, which I did. But I also kept my mouth shut about how the body was designed to work with an A.I, a sentient being, and not just a machine. Serves them right if you ask me.” He takes a small breath and meets Connor’s eyes. “I want the android revolution because the revolution is against CyberLife and its latest CEO who took my position. I never actually planned for any of this to happen if I’m honest, but it’s a rather happy coincidence that will ultimately end up working in my favour should it all go well.”

“In your favour?” Hank asks, confused, “what exactly do you stand to gain from this should it go well?”

“My company back” Kamski says easily, and Connor notices that Hank doesn’t exactly look thrilled by that idea, neither is Connor if he’s honest, something which Kamski seems to pick up on.

“Would you rather have someone else running it? Someone who doesn't appreciate deviants the way I do?" Kamski asks, and Connor doesn’t quite know what to say to that. He’s a little concerned, but at the same time, he also knows that it’s highly unlikely anything Kamski could or might do in power is not as bad as how his previous timeline went, so that’s mildly comforting at least.

“Well, thank you for your time Mr Kamski” Connor says, “and for that information, but we should be going now.”

“So soon? What a shame. I was hoping to talk a little more” Kamski says, but his tone has little to no disappointment in it. Connor reckons the man will be glad to see the back of them, at least for now. He has no doubt that the man will call him later should this whole thing work, ask him about the time travel and such.

“Yeah, not gonna happen, sorry” Hank says, putting an arm on Connor’s shoulder to steer them towards the door, and Connor almost chuckles at the grizzled lieutenant’s actions.

Once they’re finally out of the house and standing on the snow-covered ramp leading to the front door, only then, does Hank speak again.

“There’s something not quite right with that guy, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

Instead of holding it back like he’s been forced to for that whole encounter, Connor laughs, seemingly surprising the man, who starts a little at the sound before relaxing and giving a small smile. But the nice moment only lasts a little before Connor is forced to reflect on everything that they've just been told, and his LED changes from blue to yellow.

“What you thinking about?” Hank asks, gesturing unconsciously towards Connor’s temple where his LED resides, and Connor gives a small sigh.

“I’m conflicted” he admits, “I don’t know if I want to go through the revolution now that I know what Kamski's motivations are.”

“Well. At least Kamski seems to be in favour of deviants” Hank offers, and Connor is unsure, but agrees as they start walking back to the car and getting in.

Hank immediately puts the heating on to warm himself back up, Connor wasn’t outside long enough for any of his biocomponents to feel the chill, but the warmth feels nice and relaxing.

“We should head back to the station” Hank says as he starts the car and reverses out so they can drive back. “Review everything so far and think about our next move. Also you have to tell me what happens next.”

“Good idea” Connor agrees, bringing up E.L.I so that he can upload some more false information before he forgets.

“Hey uh, Connor?”

Connor closes E.L.I, reminding himself to work on it later. The lieutenant’s voice sounds different, serious, and Connor figures he can hold off on updating the program for now, it’s got enough data to keep it going for a while longer anyway.

“Yeah?” He says, looking at the side of the man’s face since Hank doesn’t seem to want to face him right now.

“I was just wondering, uh, if you maybe wanted to stay over at my place again tonight. You know, since you don’t really have anywhere else to go, unless you do, in which case it doesn’t matter. You can forget I asked.”

Connor is surprised but also touched at the man’s concern. As much as the old police lieutenant likes to pretend nothing phases him, he can be a real softie, and he legitimately cares for people. Connor smiles to himself and leans his head back on the headrest.

“I mean if you’re offering it would be rude to say no right?” He says with a teasing tone, and the man relaxes.

“So that’s a yes then?”

“Yeah it is” Connor says, “thank you Hank.”

“It’s no problem.”

It’s a couple minutes before either of them speaks again.

“You know, if someone had told me a month ago I would be offering to let an android stay in my house overnight I would have had them arrested or something. Heh, now look at me.”

Connor huffs a laugh. “I like to think of it as character growth. You’re evolving, like a Pokemon.”

Surprised at the analogy, Hank laughs, sharp, like he wasn’t expecting to.

“You’re something else you know that?” He says, looking over at where Connor is sitting.

“Something good I hope” Connor responds easily with a grin, and the lieutenant rolls his eyes before turning his head back towards the road.

“Debatable.”

Connor gives a loud gasp and clutches his chest dramatically. “How rude! Attacked. By my own partner no less! Ahh! The betrayal! It hurts me deeply. You can forget our sleepover tonight! I’d much rather dig myself into a snowdrift and sleep there.”

Hank gives a short, wheezing laugh. “Shut the fuck up Connor” he says fondly, and surprisingly, his left arm reaches out and ruffles the android’s hair, startling the RK800 immensely. Hank doesn’t even seem to realise what he just did before his arm is retracting and joining the other on the steering wheel. Connor’s head still feels weird from where the man’s hand had been, and his hair is no doubt all messed up, but he doesn’t care; he ducks his head down and smiles at the warm sensation in his systems.

* * *

 

The next morning, when Connor’s low power mode switches off, he’s not surprised to see that Sumo had somehow managed to sneak his way onto the sofa to curl up half on top of Connor, but what’s maybe a little bit more surprising is the blanket draped over both of them, a blanket Connor does not remember picking up at all the previous night.

“Oh yeah, real scary guy” Connor mutters to himself fondly, and pulls the blanket further up to his chin as he engages his low-power mode for another couple of hours and drifts off again.


	17. Off The Case

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhhhhh yes hello hi it's been ages i'm SORRY. Goddamn uni man... ugh.  
> In other words I had my first dnd session yesterday and it was Fun! We killed Tom "Big" Chungus and got the treasure hell yeah! >:D  
> Enjoy this chapter guys!

“Off the case?”

“Yes, the FBI are taking over.”

“But we’re onto something!” Hank says, clearly upset, and Connor regards both the lieutenant and Captain Fowler carefully, tuning out the conversation after a while as it seems to just be the same as the one from the previous timeline. He instead dedicates his mental processes to calculating the time of the Jericho invasion. Since Connor’s actual tracker stopped working when he deviated, he doesn’t have to worry about CyberLife being able to follow him to the boat, and can just use the fake tracker he made to keep them off of his trail. Does that mean that the Jericho invasion won’t happen then? It seems like too big of an event for the timeline to just skip over, but Connor can’t think of any logical reason why it _would_ happen.

“-and the android returns to CyberLife.”

Yeah right.

Still, Connor will be have to be sure that when and if he heads to Jericho, he isn’t followed, just in case. He really doesn’t want to have to experience all the deviants being slaughtered by the FBI again, even the thought of it makes him begin to feel slightly sick. Or the android equivalent of sick, whatever that is. Oh, Hank is leaving.

Connor nods at Captain Fowler quickly before hurrying after the lieutenant, who is already halfway back to his desk already, looking pissed. The man huffs and sits down, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning backwards against the back of the chair. Hesitant, Connor walks over and, feeling a little more bold, sits down on Hank’s desk in front of him so that they can talk. It’s not like there’s anyone else in the station right now to see it.

“You seem annoyed.” He says, and Hank looks at him like he’s stupid.

“Well, yeah. The FBI has taken us off the case, what are we supposed to do now? And what are you gonna do?”

Connor shrugs. “I mean, I don’t really care about being taken off the case, it’s not like I had any intention of catching any deviants anyway. Or returning to CyberLife.”

“So what _are_ you going to do?”

That’s a good question actually. Because CyberLife is probably expecting him back, it’s not like he can really continue working undercover anymore. Not that he plans to go to CyberLife, but still, what can he really do? He needs his position in the police department to do anything worthy, without it he’s just another android with no way of helping anyone. He sighs.

“I mean, I don’t know. I’ve done all I can really. I could maybe continue to do… something here, or maybe I should just give up and go back to Canada?”

Hank makes a face.

“What? You gonna miss me or something?” Connor teases with a small grin, and Hank looks at him and huffs, but he does look a little more amused.

“Don’t let it get to your head” he says, “and I mean, you don’t have to go back to Canada, do you?”

Connor raises one shoulder in an ‘I dunno’ gesture. “CyberLife will be looking for me, I’m not safe here anymore. I guess I’ve done all I can, I’m just endangering people by sticking around.”

“I… suppose so?” Hank says, sounding unsure. “I mean you could just stick around anyway? If the revolution succeeds then you should be fine right?”

“True” Connor agrees, shifting a little. “Maybe I will, I don’t know.”

Hank looks down at his lap for a few seconds before moving his head back up and back towards the android. “Well, you don’t plan on going back to CyberLife, but they’ll expect you back, so what you gonna do?”

Luckily, Connor’s already thought about that very question.

“I’ll take a video of me in a taxi heading to CyberLife and send it to them through E.L.I, that’ll buy me some time at least. After that I have no clue. Still working on it.”

“Is E.L.I that little program doohickey you made to fool CyberLife?”

Connor tries not to laugh at the word ‘doohickey’ and nods, gesturing for Hank to go on.

“How about you head to Chicken Feed and I’ll pick you up in an hour once my shift is over, we can head back to my house for a little bit while you figure it out.”

Connor gives it some thought. It’s a good idea, he couldn’t go straight to Hank’s house because the man lives in the opposite direction to CyberLife, and if any of the precinct saw him heading the wrong way there might be some trouble. However, does Connor really want to put Hank in danger like that? If for some reason CyberLife don’t buy his footage then one of the first places they’ll think to look is the lieutenant’s place. Can Connor really take that risk? No matter how small it happens to be? Still, it’s not like he has any more options, and only staying for an hour or two probably wouldn’t change anything, it would just give him some time to sort himself out.

“Alright, that’s a pretty good idea” Connor says after a minute, “thanks Hank.”

“No problem Connor” Hank says, turning his gaze to his monitor as they start to make a little quiet conversation, at least before Hank interrupts them, staring at something over Connor’s shoulder.

“Well well, here comes Perkins, sure don’t waste any time at the FBI do they?”

Connor turns around, watching Perkins walk across the room, typing something forcefully on his phone, before turning back, not particularly interested in the other human.

“Leave him, it’s not like his investigation will go anywhere unless he can find Jericho.”

Hank huffs, and they continue talking about the case, that is, until a certain someone shows up not even a minute later.

“Heard you were heading back to CyberLife tincan, that true?”

Hank’s fist clenches at Detective Reed’s presence, and Connor resists the urge to tell the man to calm down, though he does feel himself stiffen at the approaching Detective. What is he even doing here anyway? It’s not like he ever does anything but sit there and type on his phone.

“The fuck do you want Gavin?” Hank asks, sounding a mixture of frustrated and bored.

Reed looks at Connor, who’s still sitting casually on the desk and raises an eyebrow before continuing. “Chill Anderson, just here to see the plastic prick off, sooner it leaves the better right? Might just call CyberLife right now and tell them to come pick it up now so it’s outta here faster.”

“Don’t you have actual work to be doing, Detective?” Connor asks, voice full of faux innocence, though he’s careful to keep his expression in his machine-mask.

“Shut up android, you’re lucky I haven’t destroyed you after that little email stint you pulled on me.”

“Why would I ever do such a thing, Detective? Such acts do not help me on my investigation. Now if you will excuse me, I must make my way back to CyberLife.” Connor stands up and walks away from the desk, shooting Hank a wink when no one is looking to show that he still plans to meet the man at Chicken Feed, and leaves the precinct.

There’s a light falling snow that wasn’t there when they first arrived at the station, and the immediate chill seeps right through Connor’s thin clothing, but it’s not really enough to bother him. He hails a taxi, stepping in as soon as it pulls up.

“CyberLife tower please” he says, and the car puts in the destination before setting off. When they’re a little ways away from the police department, Connor takes a recording from his memory banks of his journey, making sure he gets the destination panel in and puts it into E.L.I, now when it sends, CyberLife will see that he is on the way, which is good, buys him some time at least.

“Taxi, switch destination to Chicken Feed” he says. He doesn’t have to make the location any more specific than that, there’s only one Chicken Feed in the Detroit area. Still, Connor checks the panel to make sure that they’re going the right way, which they are, thankfully. He leans his head against the window of the car, closing his eyes as he thinks about what is going to happen to him next, and what will become of the revolution. Things are out of his hands now.

* * *

 

The taxi pulls up just outside Chicken Feed, which is closed for the holidays and with the whole deviant thing going on at the moment. Civil war isn’t a good time to be selling sandwiches Connor guesses. It’s 4:35pm, and darkness is already beginning to creep over the landscape, typical of winter; the darkness doesn’t bother Connor though, and he retreats into his processor to check on E.L.I while he waits for the lieutenant to turn up.

Some of the radio stations are down, but Connor tunes into one and listens to the news, checking to see what’s happening. As expected, they’re talking about Markus’ broadcast and trying to reassure the public that CyberLife said they had it under control. It’s all lies, CyberLife is worried, they wouldn’t have put him on the case otherwise. Bored of the same droning voices, he changes the station to a 24 hour music one instead and listens to it in his processor. It’s no electro swing, but it’s a decent song and keeps his mind of his situation at least a little bit.

The click of a gun and feeling of something cold against the back of his head rips him out of his concentration and he opens his eyes, confused as to why he can’t see anything on his scans, it’s like there’s no one even standing behind him. Inside his processor, the music clicks off, leaving him with the sound of the city and the person standing behind him.

“Stay still” a male voice hisses, “or we’ll be forced to neutralise you.”

Connor slowly raises his arms, palms facing outwards as he calculates a way of getting the gun away without anyone getting hurt, and by ‘anyone’ he means him.

He runs a quick preconstruction and chooses the option with the highest percentage success, spinning around, grabbing the barrel of the gun and ripping it out of the person’s hand before they can shoot it. He catches sight of a startled AC700 before the gun is abruptly wrenched out his grip again, as Connor hadn’t realised that there was more than one person, them not showing up on his scanners.

Something smashes into the side of his head before he has a chance to react, sending him reeling to the side. He stumbles, unable to see anything for a second as error messages fill his visual HUD and his combat protocols come online. Unfortunately that second of him being unable to defend is all the others seem to have needed, and he’s suddenly pinned down by three bodies, androids if their body temperature and strength is anything to go off of. Now, Connor is a highly advanced android, the most advanced android to be made so far, his capabilities far outreach any other’s, but there’s only so much even he can do with three androids using their whole strength to keep him down besides struggle, which he does. If he was on his back it might be easier, but they’ve pinned him with his stomach pressed against the floor, and he can’t bend his arms backwards in such a way to defend himself that doesn’t risk him snapping some of his smaller thirium wires.

“Stop fucking struggling” a female voice says, and for whatever reason she sounds eerily like Amanda. Or maybe, looking back on it later, she didn’t, and it was just the creeping fear distorting her voice for Connor in that moment. Regardless, Connor panics, thinking that CyberLife must have sent these androids to come and get him, take him back to the company to be deactivated, and he struggles even harder.

“Get off get off get off get off get off please get off please please get off!" Connor yells, vocal processor failing and crackling with his increasing terror. He thrashes, managing to kick one of his legs up and feeling it collide with something. There’s a muffled curse before his leg is held down again, the three voices become louder, freaking out as they realise that Connor isn’t calming down. And although it’s at this point Connor realises that these three androids are definitely not from CyberLife, he’s too far gone to do much about it.

Over the course of time from the Eden Club to now, Connor has realised that his panic attacks seem to be caused by him feeling out of control in a situation, or just a culmination of his negative feelings that he’s been building up with no way of getting rid of. This knowledge he thought would help him in the future, help him know when he was going to have an attack and then have the willpower to avoid it. However, Connor severely overestimated his abilities, and underestimated how strong being a deviant for eight months made his emotions. Instead of remaining calm and managing to fight his way out of it, or even think to call someone for help, Connor loses himself to his instincts, frantically trying to tear the three off of him as he twists and yells for them to “just please get off fucking get off me!”

“Just shut him up already! Before anyone hears us and comes investigating” the first voice snaps, the AC700, and a hand is suddenly on the back of his head, pushing his forehead into the ground.

His access port, located on the back of his neck, fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck that’s isn’t good it isn’t good oh god oh god _fuck_.

A wire is harshly jabbed in and one of them is talking, saying “just upload the fucking thing would you” followed by “I’m trying! He’s an RK800 you know! He’s got good firewalls. Okay there, I got it.”

A command ignites in Connor’s processor, an override that begins to shut down his secondary processes. He loses the ability to use his communications, move his limbs, or see anything as he is forced into maintenance mode. It’s almost karma in a way, revenge for when he used his programming to send those three androids at the police station into maintenance mode so he could wipe their memory. Of course _these_ three androids are not advanced enough to hack him and force him into a maintenance mode wirelessly, hence the cable, it was what CyberLife used as well when they couldn’t be bothered to shut him down wirelessly.

Connor summons the last of his strength and tries to call out for help one last time, but his vocal processor is offline, all that escapes his lips is a pathetic burst of static. He’s fucked, he’s been taken down by three androids and no one is going to help him, what if he dies here? Something rubs his cheek and Connor would flinch away if he could, but he can’t with his motor functions offline, though the act does make him realise that at some point during this whole thing he’s started crying. Well that’s just perfect.

“Okay we got it, disconnect that and get him in the car.” Is the last thing he hears before his audio receptors go offline as well, leaving him completely in maintenance mode.

The AC700 from before lifts him up just enough to put him in a car. Where exactly, Connor doesn’t know, his optical units and scanners are also both offline, he can’t see anything. The most he can do is feel the material of the car seat under him as he’s forced into a semi-sitting position.

His processor is still online though, the code, or virus Connor supposes, wasn’t strong enough to knock that off. In a moment of clarity now that he can think straight, Connor turns his tracker off and takes a chunk of the footage of him being attacked and edits it going to black when he’s hit in the head, uploading it to E.L.I. Now when it’s sent off to CyberLife it will look like Connor was destroyed, and that way CyberLife won’t be expecting him back, so there’s one upside to this whole situation at least.

Another upside, or downside, it’s debatable, comes to him a second later when he realises that the code forcing him into maintenance mode is a foreign code, which can be removed with a full diagnostic sweep. The problem with that is that he’d have to be offline, and if he’s offline he won’t know what’s happening. Not that he knows much anyway based on how he can’t see or hear anything, or move. He quickly decides, setting up a diagnostic sweep and wipe for any foreign code before shutting off, hoping that he isn’t killed before he can come back online.


	18. Confrontation

Connor wakes up slowly from his reboot, regaining his systems one by one. Which ones come online first is a bit of a gamble after his processor, it just depends on when they finish loading up. The first one that comes online in his audio receptors, the static sound getting quieter and quieter as they finish tuning and booting up.

"I didn't tell you to give him a virus!" A voice says, loudly and upset, almost angry. It doesn’t take Connor long at all to know that they’re talking about him, and he tries to focus on the voices through the dwindling static.

“I’m sorry! We’re sorry okay” another voice starts apologising, “we just didn't know what to do, he was panicking!”

His scanners come online all of a sudden and start giving him data about where he is. It’s a fairly large room, made of an old metal it seems. He’s currently sitting on a bench, also made of metal, slightly slumped to the left hand side, probably from being placed there. To his immediate right there is a faint blip on his scanners, indicating a presence, he panics, letting his combat protocols decide his next move.

His protocols reroute reboot power to his limbs, meaning that although his optic units are not online, he can now move, and he doesn’t need to be able to see as long as his scanners are online. He even switches on his advanced scanners, getting a better idea of the layout of the room, and the blips on his scans become slightly stronger.

Fast as he can, which is pretty fast considering he still can’t see and has just rebooted, Connor launches up and and takes the person next to him in a choke-hold. Unfortunately because his systems are still not super calibrated he ends up messing up slightly, and in his haste, whacks his leg off of something, causing error messages to momentarily take up his visual HUD.

“Woah what the-”

The other people in the room start yelling in surprise, including the one who Connor is holding hostage, his vocal processor isn’t online yet so he can’t say anything in response though, which is unfortunate. A pressure hits his leg, followed by another on his side just as the person, an android based on the temperature of its neck, wrenches forward and out of his arms before he can stop it. His sudden lack of leverage causes Connor’s fear to increase, he still can’t see anything.

Two of the blips on his scanner move toward him.

_Too close_

Connor freaks out, he tries to tell them to go away but his vocal processor just screeches in static, its reboot paused to make room for Connor’s advanced scanners and regained movement. They pause but ultimately ignore him, and a blip quickly approaches, trying to hold him down or something, and Connor yells, flailing his arm before feeling his first connect with something hard. It’s too much, his scanners are good but he can’t see. Connor retreats, scrambling away into the corner of the room and standing there, ready to fight and probably looking like some kind of scared, wild animal. Whatever. He takes the time to turn off his combat protocols and advanced scanners, finally letting his optic units and vocal processor finish rebooting and come online.

Although his audio processors are online, there’s just a lot of yelling going on and Connor can barely distinguish any individual words from it, it’s too loud, too chaotic and _he still can’t fucking see yet._ A notification, his vocal processor is online, thank fuck for that, and it’s closely followed by his optic units, _finally_. He’s blinded momentarily as the units calibrate based on the amount of light in the room, but it eventually settles into something more manageable. He can see again.

He doesn’t get to enjoy it for long though before his visual HUD is flooded with warnings and notifications, his hurt leg, his combat protocols wanting to come back online, something’s wrong with his cooling tank, low thirium, the access port at the back of his neck is slightly damaged, firewall breached, update E.L.I, calibration not fully complete yet-

The door to the room suddenly slams open, the heavy metal clanging deafeningly against the equally metal wall behind it. But in contrast, the voice that accompanies it, although also pretty loud, is curious and gentler than one might expect for the volume.

“What is going on here?”

Everyone stops yelling and Connor only just now recognises that he still is in fact, in a corner. He rids himself of all the error messages and system notifications, finally able to see his environment for the first time. The room is in fact metal, all rusted and brown, it’s mostly a large and empty space besides the people in it. There are four androids in the room, now including the one at the door and not including Connor himself. The first one he sees is a female android, and the next he mistakes for Daniel for a second, feeling something dark twist in his thirium pump before he fully recognises him.

“Simon?” He asks, slowly, confused.

The blonde android turns to him with a small smile, seeming relieved that Connor recognises him.

“Yes, are you okay? Do you feel fine?”

Connor is confused, he doesn't remember everything from the encounter since he was in the middle of a panic attack and then shut down. Did Simon take him here? What’s happening? Physically, he could be doing a lot better, but he’s not comfortable enough to let them know that and so he just nods his head slowly, hoping he’s convincing enough. Connor unfortunately knows that he’s not the best liar.

“Uh, I’m Josh” one of the androids says, pulling Connor’s attention towards him. A PJ500, used for university lectures, interesting.

“Connor,” Connor says cautiously, internally wincing at the pathetic film of static that coats his words. Vocal processor still a couple percentages off of being fully calibrated. He sees Simon’s face twist in sympathy, and Connor can faintly feel small coils of anger taking hold of him, he doesn’t know why though.

“Connor, look” Simon starts, distracting Connor from his emotional confusion. “I am deeply sorry that this happened to you, this was… This was not meant to happen at all. You were supposed to be asked to come visit us so that we could talk, not… Not assaulted.” The PL600 punctuates the statement with a glare towards the female android, an AK700, who to her credit, looks ashamed before apologising and leaving through a door Connor previously hadn’t seen at the side of the room.

There’s only one android left now, and when Connor focuses on him, he’s startled. It’s Markus, the deviant leader himself.

Oh god he’s here to be killed isn’t he? He’s the deviant hunter, the traitor, they took him and forced him into a state where he couldn’t fight back, took him to their lair, is he going to stand trial? Does he even deserve that? No. A pressure behind his optic units. He doesn’t. Distantly, through the heavy sludge of his thoughts, he can feel something isn’t right. He’s too stiff, he’s breathing too fast in an attempt to cool himself down because _his cooling tank still isn’t online yet_ , the horrible coldness from the bridge, from the Eden Club, is worming and twisting around his insides, plunging deep into his thirium pump and _squeezing_ around it. Something says his name, but it’s not picked up by his audio receptors, he might not have heard it otherwise. No. The voice is coming from a transmission, a mental connection, and it slices through the growing black cloud in his processor, pulling his eyes up from where they’ve locked onto the floor and meeting a pair of mismatched irises.

 _“You’re okay”_ the voice says, calm, soothing. _“We aren’t going to hurt you, you’re safe here, trust us, please.”_

“Where am I?” Connor snaps, his voice is no longer fill of static but it is shaky with the fear he’s trying desperately to shake off.

“You’re in Jericho” Markus says, not making any move to come further into the room, to come closer to Connor.

“Why?” Connor says, before realising that he should probably clarify what he meant by that. “Why was I captured?”

He catches Simon and Josh wincing out of the corner of his eye, but he keeps his gaze on Markus, using all his skills to try and see any hint of deception in his face. There isn’t any.

“We had no intention of assault or causing you any distress” Markus says, and god does he have the voice that just makes you want to believe him. “The search party we sent out to get you were supposed to just talk to you, ask you to come to Jericho.”

Despite everything, Connor feels himself calming down slightly. The icy tendril around his chest loosens, but still feels very present, waiting for something to happen, for this all to turn out to be a trap.

“Then, why am I here? Why did you want me to come?”

Seeing something in him, Markus finally walks into the room, confident that the action will no longer set Connor off, and Connor idly wonders how good the RK200 is at reading people. Markus sits on the bench Connor recognises that he himself was sitting on before, and gestures for Connor to sit next to him, while Simon and Josh stay standing. It’s a pretty big bench, they’ll be about a foot or so of space between them, so Connor accepts the invitation, carefully coming out of the corner he backed himself into before and sitting on the opposite side to the deviant leader. Cautious, but also curious now.

“When I came to Jericho a couple of weeks ago or so, I heard a couple of murmurs circling around about a deviant hunter, an advanced model that was working for CyberLife to hunt us down.”

Connor feels something sink in his chassis, something which Markus seems to pick up on because he gives the other android a small, reassuring smile.

“When I first heard the rumours, I was shocked, about how someone could do that to their own kind. But I also knew that not everyone is able to stop following orders so easily, there was even a point in time where I would not, or perhaps could not, bring myself to disobey a human order either. However.”

Connor perks up in interest, straightening a little and waiting to see what Markus is going to say about him.

“As my stay at Jericho got longer, I heard more and more about this alleged deviant hunter, androids would come to us talking of the police android that would save them, tell them of this place. More and more came, and I began to believe that maybe there was someone out there on our side after all. Some remained sceptical, I kind of expected that, but I remained hopeful. Lately I found myself really wanting to meet the mysterious android behind the title, so I sent out a small search party to find and convince him to come talk to me, I see that didn’t go as planned.”

Connor fidgets under the gaze of the deviant leader, wishing he had his coin.

Wait he has his coin what the hell is he going on about?

Connor slowly reaches a hand inside his pocket and pulls it out, running the small metal disc over his knuckles. Instantly some of the tension melts from his frame, the repetitive motion soothing and clearing his processor enough for him to be able to think and go over what he was told. He’s aware that the three androids in the room are watching him, but he doesn’t have the energy for being embarrassed right now.

“You could say that again” Connor huffs dryly, though he’s careful to not make it sound like he’s angry. He’s not, not really, but it’s important that that comes across. It seems to, as Markus chuckles lightly.

“I _am_ very sorry about all of this by the way.”

Connor waves him off, flicking his coin up and down with his other hand. “It’s fine, all things considered I’m as over it as I can be.” He leans backward so that his shoulders are pressed against the wall, one because he’s tired, not physically, but emotionally, and two because he knows on some level that he’s not going to be hurt, at least right now.

“That’s an impressive power of forgiveness you have” Markus says, and Connor shrugs in response.

“The power of not giving a fuck. Pardon my French” he says, hoping to defuse some of the tension.

Josh snorts out a laugh and Connor shoots him a grin in response, catching sight of Markus’ slightly surprised expression as he does, for what’s it’s worth, Simon also looks a combination of amused and surprised.

“How long have you been deviant?” Josh asks, still smiling, and the question sounds like it’s meant to be rhetoric, but Connor answers it anyway.

“Almost nine months now” he says, and Josh’s smile slips from his face in favour of shock.

“Nine months?” Markus asks, pulling Connor’s attention back to him. The deviant leader also looks shocked, and confused.

“That’s longer than any of us” Simon breathes, and Connor raises a shoulder in a half-shrug.

“It’s a long story, one that we probably don’t have time for.” He turns his attention back to Markus, “do you have any more questions? I’m happy to answer them and you said you wanted to talk.”

Markus blinks, almost like he forgot what they were originally talking about for a second before he regains his composure.

“I did have questions, but now I fear I have a whole lot more.”

“Well shoot one of them at me” Connor says, letting his head hit the wall behind him. For some reason he just feels so _exhausted_ , and strangely uncomfortable and warm. Frowning internally, he switches on his cooling tank, which has apparently started working again at some point, instantly feeling the relief, though some of his systems still feel sluggish.

“Why send the deviants here? How did you even know this place existed?”

Well that was something Connor wasn’t expecting to be asked. Going to have to try and think of some lie on the fly now. Mentally crossing his fingers, he hopes it sounds convincing.

“I knew they would be safe here. There was a statue in one of the houses we investigated, smashing it revealed the coordinates to Jericho so I did some research, checked it out and stuff.” It’s not a _complete_ lie, the statue thing is true, but he learned that last timeline, not this one. “I knew that I was a deviant before I was tasked with hunting deviants, so I never planned on actually capturing or killing any of them. I used my position in the police to find where they might be, and sent them to Jericho, hoping that they made it safely. That’s pretty much it.”

“But what about CyberLife?” Josh asks, “do they know where you are? What about your tracker? Wouldn’t they notice you never had one?”

“All legitimate questions” Connor says, wishing that they would just give him a second to breathe. He closes his eyes and stops twirling his coin around his fingers, instead just keeping it clutched in his hand.

“Are you okay?” Markus asks, and Connor opens his eyes and once again waves the android off.  

“Just a little overwhelmed, lot of stuff has happened recently that I have yet to process.” Markus makes a sympathetic face and Connor starts talking before the deviant leader can start apologising again. “I engineered a fake tracker, it’s disabled now, so CyberLife won’t be coming here. I also made a small program, it sends information through my firewall to CyberLife so that they don’t suspect anything.”

“Does CyberLife… Know anything? About us I mean.”

Connor looks at Simon and gives a little smile, apologetic. “I don’t know. My firewall means that CyberLife doesn’t get any information from me, but, it also means that I don’t get any information from CyberLife, I can’t access their servers.”

“You were able to cut yourself off completely?” Josh asks, sounding surprised and almost in-awe.

“I know, I’m incredibly impressive” Connor drawls, and he and Josh share a quick laugh, along with Simon. The whole thing, situation, feels a little surreal to be honest.

“So Owen would have us believe” Markus says with a fond smile, and Connor perks up at the sound of the android’s name.

“Owen? You know him?”

“A lot of us do, he was the first one who started talking about you” Simon explains.

“He talked about me?”

“Sure did. A lot of people wrote him off as crazy, but some believed him” Markus carries on with a small nod towards Simon, who gives a shy smile. “He also said that, quote, a powerful and kind RK800 deviant was being held hostage by either the DPD or CyberLife, and must be rescued as soon as possible, unquote.”

Connor groans and closes his eyes, and if his head wasn’t already resting against the wall, he would have thunked it against it in defeat. “I never got a chance to tell him that wasn’t true” he mutters, hearing Josh and Simon snickering.

“So you’re not being held captive?” Markus asks, and Connor goes to respond when the door to the room suddenly slams open, clanking harshly off the wall behind it.

The WR400 stands in the doorway, all auburn hair and harsh eyes, harsh eyes that immediately fixate on Connor before snapping over, with purpose, to Markus.

“Can I talk to you?” She asks bluntly.

Markus looks back at her, calm, “I’m a little busy right now, North, can it wait?”

 “With the deviant hunter?”

Connor exhales.

“Yes, though his name is Connor” Markus says with a nod towards the RK800.

North scoffs, clearly displeased by Connor being there. “I don’t care what his name is, and frankly, I can’t believe you’re trusting him so easily. Especially when he could easily be a trying to gain our trust only to take us down later.”

Before anyone can speak up, Simon vouches for him, "why would he save me then?"

“To strengthen his case?” North says slowly, like Simon is stupid.

Connor honestly doesn’t blame North for being so suspicious, he is in the same room as Markus, if he really were just trying to kill the deviant leader, this would be the perfect time to do it. Thankfully he has no plans of doing that whatsoever. Now it’s just a case of trying to show _everyone else_ that fact. He would say something to the WR400, but she and Markus are practically arguing now, along with Josh and Simon, and even if Connor could get a single word in over the commotion, he’s just feeling too drained. Something is definitely going on with him. He can figure it out in a bit though, when things settle down at least.

“I’m not saying that we should kill him!” North snaps at Josh, her voice bouncing off the un-insulated walls and echoing around Connor’s head. “It’s just that none of you, besides me, seem to be considering the possibility that this all seems a little too convenient for us!”

“She’s right” Connor says before anyone can interrupt her. “I mean, if I were here to kill you it would be _really_ easy.” He makes his hand form the shape of a gun and pretends to shoot Markus. “Bang! And that would be that, maybe you should get some better security. I mean, I don’t have a gun but the point still stands.”

Everyone stiffens, but Markus looks amused more than anything. North scans him with her eyes, seemingly _seeing_ him for the first time since she walked into the room.

“Markus” she says, turning back to the deviant leader. “Please consider the safety of Jericho.”

Markus sighs, North’s voice is quieter, asking, and he clearly has a bit of a soft spot for her.

“Alright, alright. Hold on.”

Markus, from where he walked to talk to the group better, comes back to the bench and sits next to Connor once more, who regards him with a curious eye.

“Feel free to say no, but do you mind if we interface? I just want to check you’re being honest.”

Connor pauses. It’s a sensible thing to do on the deviant leader’s part, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. He’s especially worried about Markus seeing something from his previous timeline, or learn of his time travel, and his reluctance seems to broadcast pretty easily.

“Don’t feel pressured, it just might help” Markus continues. “I just want to see how you were brought here so that I can check a couple of things.”

Again, it’s a reasonable request. Connor forces himself to relax, it doesn’t have to be a both-ways interface, he can see what’s being shared and cut it off before Markus sees anything, it should be okay. He takes a long breath and nods.

“Alright, let’s do it then.” The synthetic skin slinks off of his hand as he holds the white plastic out towards the deviant leader, who seems surprised, but pleased. Markus also lets his skin retract and slowly touches his fingers to Connor’s palm, and Connor opens his memory storage.

To Connor’s surprise, Markus doesn’t make any effort to keep his own memory storage closed off to him, an invitation to let the RK800 see what he wants. Out of respect though, Connor rejects the offer, keeping away, though a few memories of Markus’ trip into Jericho manage to slip through his barriers, a by-product of such an open connection. Instead, Connor focuses on what Markus is seeing from his own memories, ready to jump in should something be revealed about his time travel.

_The garden. “Hello Amanda” BANG_

_“You’re a pretty model. Unique. You’d make a good worker android for the Eden Club. What model ae you?” Rage. Red hot, painful rage._

_“I won’t let him down. Not again,” Connor tells the photo of Cole, sitting on the lieutenant’s dining table. “Your father is a brave man, a good man, and I will do my absolute best to keep him alive.”_

_“Never heard an android sing before.” Surprise, embarrassment._

_“It doesn’t have to be… rational.” Connor says eventually, and the lieutenant raises his head to look at the android. “Everybody deals with things differently, no one is the same. That’s what makes humans… Human. Sure, there are probably healthier ways of dealing with something, but therapy and a good diet isn’t going to work for everyone either. And. And I think that’s an important lesson that some people need to learn.”_

_“Just shut him up already! Before anyone hears us and comes investigating” a hand suddenly on the back of his head, pushing his forehead into the ground. TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TER TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TERROR TER-_

Markus rips his hand away from Connor’s, whose gone ramrod straight and staring at a patch of wall just behind Markus’ head. Simon, Josh and North jerk, surprised at the usually-gentle RK200’s violent reaction. Markus rids his HUD of the error messages, trying to calm the rampant drumming of his thirium pump in his chest. He tries to focus his eyes through the residual panic that is not his own and focus, but Connor is too far gone to even realise.

The RK800 takes a deep, shuddering breath and promptly goes offline, not hearing the other’s concerned yelling for him as he crashes towards the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah okay I KNOW I was away for ages I had uni exams. I failed lmao XD, though so did half the class and I can retake it in August if I want so probably gonna do that. Who knew you had to know the phonetic alphabet off-by-heart?? Me? Who ignored that cause it sounded like a lot of work? Dunno what you're talking about. 
> 
> Also I was playing Dnd and rolled two d20's and got nat20 on both of them and it did fuck all to the enemy and I got so sad I cried. So probably not gonna play dnd again lmao.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this chapter!


	19. Planning

Connor comes online to the sound of shuffling and loud voices, confused, as he doesn’t remember going offline in the first place. Unlike the last time he woke up, he already has all his systems online, and opens his eyes, letting his optical units calibrate so that he can see what’s going on.

He’s on the floor, huh. Oh there’s someone lifting him up and putting him back on the bench.

“Simon?” He asks, and the PL600’s blue eyes immediately snap upwards to meet his own soft brown ones.

“Oh hey” Simon says gently, “glad you’re okay, you gave us a scare there.” His tone is soft, the type you would usually hear when someone was talking to a child, trying to get them to calm down. Connor doesn’t call him out on it though.

“Yeah, yeah I’m alright. What. What happened?”

“You went offline” another voice says, and Connor forces his optical units to focus on the android speaking to him. Josh. “I’ve never seen an android do that before, only humans.”

“Huh” Connor says, his body and processor feeling sluggish. “Weird.”

“That’s certainly a word for it.”

“Hush North, now is not the time” Simon scolds gently as he steps backwards and takes up his place beside Markus.

If Connor was a little less out of it he would have noticed the female android’s words lacked the amount of bite in them beforehand. It was still there, just a little less noticeable.

“Connor” Markus says, drawing the RK800’s attention, who moves his eyes towards the deviant leader with an almost-raised eyebrow. “I didn’t want to pry, and I apologise that it came to this, but I am now sure that you are deviant, and so, you are welcome here.”

North looks at Markus, and then Connor, but doesn’t say anything, so Connor counts that as a victory.

“Again, it’s fine. And thanks.” He pauses. “Can I ask something though?”

Markus blinks at Connor, surprised, but nods his head.

“What was that virus? I had to get rid of it before I could analyse it. It’s been bugging me.”

Markus pauses a small second before speaking. “It was found in a CyberLife ammo store alongside a couple of others. We brought them back for testing and determined that they were supposed to be used as some sort of weapon.” His fist clenches at his side and Connor doesn’t miss the movement. “Because they cannot remotely control us once we become deviant, they have taken to adapting their tech, making it so that if they get close enough to us, they can force us into maintenance mode, where we are helpless to defend ourselves.” A deep breath. “It was never something that I thought I would be held responsible for using on another deviant though. The search party we sent out must have taken it without consent, and for that they will be punished.”

“Don’t bother, it worked didn’t it? I’m here” Connor says, “as long as they don’t do it every time you want me here I’m good.”

Simon snickers into his hand, trying to hide it but ultimately failing.

“So, is that all? Can I go now?” Connor asks, looking between the three other androids.

North levels him with a look, clearly suspicious of him still, despite Markus’ conclusions.

“I don’t understand. You wish to leave?” Markus asks, sounding legitimately surprised. “Why would you not want to be around your people? Where it is safe? We also plan on staging a protest tomorrow night in the city centre and could use all the help we can get.”

Connor feels a twinge of guilt twist in his chassis and ignores it.

“I mean, I was quite literally kidnapped, so forgive me if I’m not exactly warm to the idea of staying – don’t apologise again, it’s not your fault. - Plus, I really don’t know how much help I would be with all that, and I need to go find Hank. He’s probably a little concerned as to where I went. We were planning to meet up before… Well, everything went down.”

There’s another reason he feels uneasy staying. He remembers that last timeline, he confronted North in the ship, and stayed a machine. Everything is different now, so he's unsure from now how the rest timeline is going to go. Not for the first time, he’s flying blind, and not for the first time, it feels more like falling than flying.

“I just don’t think that there’s enough of us to stage a full-scale peaceful protest” Simon mumbles, though he has resolve. “Something could go wrong.”

“Something will definitely go wrong, but we must make the humans see the truth” Markus says, determined.

“Yes, and violence is not going to solve anything” Josh agrees, making North pull a face. Connor remembers how the revolution went last timeline, how it failed spectacularly when led under North and her violent and destructive strategies. He suppresses the urge to look at her, to tell her that Josh is right.

Despite how much he really doesn’t know these androids, Connor does feel empathy for them. They’re charging into battle, well, “battle”, with nothing but hope on their side, and not enough people to back it up. Connor may have been sending deviants here for safety, but the number was clearly too inconsequential to do anything substantial. It makes him feel bad, like he owes them. It’s a ridiculous thought, but one that continues to flit around his processor and not leave him alone.

There has to be something that he can do, something he can do to help them in their time of need. The revolution has to succeed, it _has_ to, Connor has seen what will happen if it doesn’t, but they need more numbers and Connor doesn’t know where to get them. It’s not like they have the time to go to other parts of America and round up any deviants, everything is coming down to this moment and they need-

“Wait” he says out loud, interrupting the Jericho crew’s conversation. They turn to him, expectant eyes becoming confused when he doesn’t say anything more, just staring down at the floor between his feet.

“Yes Connor?” Josh asks, and the RK800 finally lifts his head to meet the other’s gaze.

“I think… I think I might have an idea of where you can get more people.”

Simon is the first to process the words and brightens. “Really? Where?”

Okay deep breaths. You can do this.

“CyberLife. There’s a bunch of androids in the basement that are either complete or under last minute construction, if you can get through to them, they will help you.”

“Are you sure?” Markus asks, “CyberLife is a dangerous place, especially now.”

“It’s fine” Connor says, more to himself than to them honestly. “If you can teach me that… hand thing you do, the one that frees them, I can just go there, pretend I’m there for repairs to get fixed, and sneak out.”

Markus and Simon are still very clearly worried but Connor convinces them that he wants to help. Which is true, he does. North still looks suspicious but the others look hopeful.

“I trust you” Markus says suddenly, offering Connor a hand. At first the RK800 thought that the deviant leader wanted a handshake and so was very surprised when he was suddenly pulled up into a standing position, wobbling a bit on his feet. God why did he feel so _awful_ and off-balance? He checks his balance systems. All fine. Then what-?

“You don’t have to do this you know” Markus says, gentle, as he lets go of Connor’s wrist.

“I know” Connor responds with what he hopes is a comforting grin. “But hey I might as well be useful for something you know.”

On that cue, Connor's LED suddenly flashes and goes yellow as he gets a call. With a nod from Markus, he accepts it, confused. There’s no caller ID and he doesn’t recognise the number. Must be from a pay-phone.

 _“CONNOR!”_ An all-too-familiar voice booms in his head, and Connor winces as he almost frantically turns the volume for the call down.

“Yes Hank?”

_“Don’t you fuckin ‘yes Hank’ me, robot! Where the fuck are you?! I waited outside the Feed for like an hour and you didn’t show-”_

“Human friend” Connor explains to the androids, “he’s harmless. Mostly.”

_“-was worried that CyberLife got to ya before I could. Jesus. Don’t fucking do that again okay?”_

“Aww Hank” Connor teases, feeling better than he had since arriving in Jericho, “careful, I might start to think you were actually concerned for me.”

 _“Shut it, tin can”_ Hank harshly grumbles down the line, and Connor laughs.

_“So what happened to you, and where even are you?”_

“I uh, yeah, funny story actually” Connor says, “I kinda got kidnapped but it’s fine! I’m with Markus and we’re planning a protest for android rights.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line for a long time. Longer than normal. Connor even has to check that one of them hadn’t accidentally hung up.

_“Why am I not even surprised, you’re a fucking danger magnet if ever there was one.”_

“Magnets are metal, I’m plastic, remember?” Connor says, just because he’s a little shit and he _can_.

_“Har har, you’re hilarious.”_

“Thanks I thought so too.”

_“Narcissist. But seriously Connor, that protest sounds dangerous, are you sure you wanna go through with that?”_

“I have to Hank, you of all people should know why.”

More silence.

_“Yeah I guess so. But I’m coming with you.”_

“You’re not. What if you get hurt?”

_“Then it’ll be my own damn fault, but I’m coming. And there ain’t no point arguing because I’m just gonna come anyway, so you might as well save yourself the effort.”_

Stupid, stubborn policeman. Connor smothers the smile before it can make its way onto his face.

“Fine. Tomorrow night I am headed to CyberLife tower, I’ll text you the time when I know it, we can meet up there if you’re sure you still want to come.”

_“Wait why are you going to the tower?”_

“I’ll explain later, but you can come or stay, your choice.”

_“Pft, we both know there’s no choice. Not for me. Someone’s gotta make sure you don’t get your plastic ass into too much trouble, and it might as well be me.”_

“I’m flattered” Connor deadpans, and hears Hank try to hide his chuckle with a cough. “I’ll text you tomorrow okay? Keep your phone charged and on you.”

_“Yeah yeah I know, this ain’t my first rodeo kid.”_

“Then you should be fine, I’ll talk to you later okay?”

_“Alright son, stay safe.”_

“I’ll do my absolute best.”

_“Idiot.”_

The call disconnects, making Connor feel strangely empty as he turns to face the Jericho crew, who had been kind enough to move away and start their own conversation back up when it became apparent that he wasn’t selling them out over the phone or anything like that.

“Your friend alright?” Josh asks, and Connor nods.

“He’s insisting to help with the protest, but I’ll keep him safe and as out the way as I can.”

“Any help is appreciated” Markus says as he walks over, “now, we must be ready to prepare by morning, would you stay here the night?”

“Oh, uhh, I dunno.”

After a little bit of back and forth about the night, Connor finally Connor agrees to stay at Jericho until the next day, and as an extra apology for the whole mess, Markus gives him a quick tour of Jericho and shows him to the rest of the androids. Connor already knows the plans for the ship, he’s been here before, albeit under very different circumstances, but he stays quiet throughout the tour.

Once they reach the main part of Jericho, Markus stops and turns to the other android, who looks back at him, curious.

“Are you sure that you’re okay with staying here? I don’t want to force you.”

“I’m not entirely sure, but it seems like the most safe place I could be. Plus, I’ll be needed here for tomorrow when we-”

“Connor!”

The excited voice snaps Connor out of his previous thought train violently, he whirls around to the source of the noise and is shocked to see the group of four approaching them.

“Owen!” He says back, surprised at his appearance as the HK400. Owen pulls him into a hug and Connor reciprocates after a moment of hesitation.

“I’m so glad you made it! We were just talking about you actually, about an hour ago.”

Connor releases Owen and turns to face the three Tracis, or, not really Tracis anymore, as they nod in agreement to Owen’s claim.

“Only good things I hope” he jokes, and Viola laughs.

“Is there anything truly bad to say about you though, Connor?”

“Oh yeah, loads. I can be a really mean bastard. Yesterday, I got the urge to replace all the black ink cartridges in the police station with blue ones, and replace all the blue ones with black ones. Thank the lord I didn’t! Imagine the chaos!”

“You made a wise choice” Owen says, folding his arms and nodding sagely.

“Oh damn” Katherine says with a smile, “I guess we were wrong about you. You truly are evil personified.”

“I should have known!” Viola cries, “no one can be that nice without some psychopathic tendencies.”

It takes two seconds of silence before Owen breaks and starts laughing his ass off, closely followed by Viola’s loud, brash laughter and Katherine and Rose’s giggles. Connor holds out the longest, but even he finds the situation so utterly _stupid_ that he can’t help but laugh along.

A chuckle interrupts them, and they all abruptly realise that the deviant leader is _still standing there._

“Uhh, sorry Markus” Owen starts, but Markus holds a hand up to cut him off.

“Don’t apologise, have fun tonight.” He turns to Connor, “we can talk tomorrow, for now, stay with your friends.”

Friends? That might be pushing it a little bit, but Connor doesn’t say as much as Markus clasps him on the shoulder once before leaving, presumably to do some sort of leader-stuff.

Connor ends up getting pulled into a circle around a fire-barrel with the Tracis and Owen, and they end up talking for hours about deviancy and how they figured out they were deviant. They’re very interesting stories, though none of them are particularly happy ones. When asked about his own story, Connor tells a half-truth and says he woke up as a deviant one day on the operating table at CyberLife, which was definitely a shock for him. That story gets a laugh.

At some point in the night, during one of their conversations about Owen’s escapades around Jericho and Detroit, they gain a very unexpected – at least unexpected for Connor – guest. Rupert appears cautiously at the edge of the small group and asks Connor what happened. Surprised at the deviant’s appearance, Connor stutters a bit before telling him about his point of view during the case, getting a couple of ‘whoop whoop’s from the Tracis when he talks about shoving the human aside during the chase.

Rupert ends up joining their group, hunkered around the flaming barrel, and they talk for the rest of the night. Androids don’t need sleep, no matter how much Connor wants to take a nap.

The lethargic feeling pressing on him gets worse during the night, just worse and worse as time goes by. At points everything feels too slow, or he seems too heavy to move more than a couple of inches. But despite that, he feels mentally better than he has for a while. His body is heavy but his processor and thirium pump are light, and his laughs and smiles are genuine. If any of the other androids are surprised to see the supposed ‘Deviant Hunter’ sitting around Jericho and casually talking, Connor doesn’t see, though at some point their small group gains a couple others, who sit, and listen.

Connor could almost convince himself that he doesn’t feel the ever-present shadow, lurking in the depths of his chest, waiting for it all to go wrong.

* * *

 

The next morning, Connor heads up to the office where he finds Markus, Simon, Josh and North talking over a table. On the table is a map of the city, but he doesn’t get much of a chance to look at it before he’s being spoken to.

“Ah Connor, thank you for joining us” Markus says warmly, and Connor gives him a small smile in response. However, whatever he is about to say is cut off when an android he didn’t see previously, suddenly stands up in the corner of the room.

She’s a KL900, the first one Connor has ever seen. They’re a particularly rare model, designed to provide social care, help broken families, assist victims of intense trauma, or care for psychologically disturbed individuals. He remembers hearing about them, reading about them on CyberLife’s databases. They had once been one of the company’s greatest achievements, one of their functions being precursor to the supercomputers CyberLife worked on. That function being the psychological simulation module they were all equipped with, that, if utilised correctly, allows the calculation of future events. It was a fascinating subject and Connor had always been interested in the KL900s, which is also why it hits him particularly hard when he sees her almost-exposed processor and damaged optic units.

“We want to make sure that the virus is gone entirely from your body before we finish making plans for the protest. That’s why Lucy is here.” Josh explains helpfully. “Plus, a quick check-up never hurt anyone.”

Connor snaps back to the present, looking at Josh before turning back to the KL900, Lucy. She walks towards him, oddly gracefully, and he can tell that he’s being scanned. Something prods at his processor, her scan, asking for a little more access. Conner is only mildly distrustful at worst, so he lets her have a little more slack and the scan goes deeper into his processor. It goes to his system warnings, the warnings he had been ignoring since he woke up here, and flips through them, concentrating on one. Suddenly, everything clicks into place. The scan retreats from Connor’s processor entirely.

“You are very low on thirium” she says.

The lethargy, the sluggish feeling of his limbs, how warm he’s been, of course. A part of him had even acknowledged that he had low thirium back when he woke up from his forced maintenance mode, but he’d shoved it aside and blocked the notifications from it. He checks the tank.

13%

Oof.

“How low?” Simon asks Lucy.

“Very low” she responds, and Josh gets up and leaves, presumably to go and get some thirium.

“You should not let your reserves get that low” she continues, and Connor focuses on her, “it can be damaging, especially when it is caused by exertion and not a wound.”

“Exertion?” Markus asks, sounding concerned. “But thirium never lasts that short an amount of time on that alone.”

“My thirium regulator is broken” Connor says slowly, “or at least it’s lost efficiency at some point. I didn’t even realise.”

“Can it be fixed?” Simon asks, and Lucy looks at him.

“Yes, but not with the parts we have, it will have to wait. It is not too badly damaged, as long as he has a full tank, he will be in no danger of powering down anytime soon.”

That’s a relief to hear at the very least.

“Well, doesn’t matter if this whole thing goes wrong” Connor says, trying to lighten the mood. It doesn’t really work all that well.

Josh returns with four bottles of thirium, which is a bit excessive, it only takes two and a half to fill his tank, but he gives him the last full one and tells him to keep it ‘just in case anything happens’. Connor thanks him and takes the bottle.

While he's drinking, and my god does he feel so much better already, Lucy turns to him suddenly.

“You have suffered much” she says, “yet are still trying to fix everything.”

Connor almost chokes on the thirium, well, more like spills it, androids don’t really have the biology for “choking” per say.

“What?” He asks her, ignoring how the others are not-so-subtly listening in. “What do you mean?”

"Many paths” she continues, “which will you go down? You're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, a burden which should not be shared alone." 

The Jericho crew becomes visibly confused at what she means by that, but Connor just sits there and then quietly thanks her. It’s not comforting in the slightest, but it’s the closest to understanding anyone has been since maybe Hank.

Lucy leaves, and with that, things turn back to planning. Markus tells Connor that they are preparing for the revolution, and asks Connor if he can go over the plan with them- so that Connor knows where to bring the CyberLife androids. He does, and they spend the next hour or so hunched over the table, discussing who will be where and when, as well as any counter-strategies in case of nasty surprises. When it’s all done, North, Simon and Josh leave the room, but Markus and Connor stay behind.

“Alright then” Markus says, “let’s see if I can teach you how to free androids.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M! NOT! DEAD! :D!  
> Externally anyway.
> 
> Okay imma be real with y'all. I'm not in the DBH fandom anymore. At all. And so, my motivation for this fic is.... so low... so so so low... That's why it took so long for this chapter to come out, even LOOKING at the doc exhausts me. Ugh.
> 
> BUT! I PROMISED YOU GUYS I WOULD FINISH IT AND SO I W I L L  
> EVEN IF I HAVE TO CLAW MY WAY TO VICTORY I WILL FINISH THIS GODDAMN FIC!!!!
> 
> So yeah if I misspell anything or the chapters seem a lil' sloppier, you know why.
> 
> Also thank you to all that reviewed, they really helped me push through the Ugh. and write this chapter! I'm sorry I responded so late, but I did see each and every one of them as soon as they were posted and it means a lot to me.
> 
> I don't wanna be a review whore but if you can spare a review blease do, they help so much and they're pretty much the only thing getting me through these last few chapters. That and pure spite and pride. hell ye.
> 
> (Also did anyone notice the amount of chapters has been decided??? eh?? ehhhh? I've planned it out lads. I'm getting there)
> 
> Anyway okie bye


	20. CyberLife Infiltration

“And what he just, threw it?”

“Yeah, to the other side of the room, it landed on the floor somewhere.”

“Well no wonder it’s broken then.”

“You’re telling me” Connor says with a small, huffed laugh, idly pressing the part of his chest where his thirium regulator resides. Owen shakes his head and crosses his arms, leaning on the side of the rusted metal ship. It’s loud with the noise of bustling androids, so they have to speak slightly louder to be heard, but it’s not loud enough that using their mental connection would be better.

“I can’t imagine being in that situation honestly, just having my regulator ripped out like that by some crazy android I was trying to help.”

Connor makes a face and crosses one of his legs over the other from where he’s sitting, on a large wooden box, probably full of supplies. “I mean, to be honest I didn’t really phrase it like I was trying to help him, which ended up being a huge mistake on my part. But yeah it was scary, before that I never even knew deviants could be mad, but I guess if madness affects humans then, you know.”

Owen nods, clearly listening even though he’s watching the androids of Jericho prepare for the protest. “Guess so. Still, you could have died if, what was his name?-” “Christopher.” “-Yeah him, if Christopher hadn’t gotten it back to you in time. That’s nuts.”

“Not the word I used for it at the time” Connor chuckles, “but you’re right. Honestly it didn’t even occur to me that the whole throwing thing would have damaged it, I guess I should have paid more attention to my thirium levels. Then I might have known why I was feeling bad at least.”

Owen hums, “you should have said something sooner about that by the way.”

“Eh” Connor says casually, raising one shoulder in a shrug, “it got sorted, I would have gotten a notification when I was down to ten percent anyway so.” It’s not a very good excuse, and they both know it.

“Might have been too late then” Owen says, uncharacteristically serious, and Connor shoots him a look. A veil of tension settles over the pair, smothering the light-hearted tones from before.

“Owen, I’m fine, nothing happened.” Kind of a lie but whatever.

Owen looks down at his feet, and his posture becomes more tense, shoulder’s hunched and arms tightening around his torso. “Yeah but, something could’ve. You need to take better care of yourself. I worry sometimes, especially when I hear about things like this.”

Surprised, Connor gets off the box and crosses the four feet to where Owen is standing, still looking at the floor.

“Hey” the RK800 says gently, putting his arm on Owen’s shoulder. “You really don’t have to worry about me okay? Yeah sure I’m not the most safety conscious android but I’m not suicidal or anything. Believe it or not I don’t actually _want_ to die.”

Some of the tension bleeds out of Owen’s posture, but he keeps his head down and his arms crossed. The nearby fire from the barrel illuminating the side of his face. “Yeah I know. It’s just that” he finally looks up, meeting Connor’s eyes, “you were like, are like, my first friend ever, so you know, I worry.”

Connor stills, his hand dropping from Owen’s shoulder. Friends? Owen thought of him as a friend? That’s…. not as unexpected as it seems, yet it’s enough to shock the RK800 immensely. The only friend he’s had so far is Hank, at least in this timeline, and he honestly wasn’t expecting any more. Maybe it’s so surprising because he had Owen arrested, because he put his life in danger. Connor doesn’t know, and something seems to alert the HK400 to his mental distress as he bumps Connor with his shoulder, snapping him out of it.

“Hey you really didn’t think we weren’t friends did you?” He asks, back to teasing, and the veil lifts just as suddenly as it arrived.

Connor shrugs in an exaggerated manner, fighting down a smile. “Can’t say I expected it to be honest, we’ve known one another for like, maybe twenty hours tops. That’s not even a full day.”

“It’s long enough” Owen says, grinning, before shoving his shoulder once more and gesturing towards where a group of androids are talking. “I had better go help everyone get ready for the protest, you should go find Markus.”

“Probably” Connor agrees, “I’ll see you around. Be careful.”

“Right back at you” Owen says, giving him a quick hug before walking off, leaving Connor alone.

Over the past few hours, androids in the dozens have been coming to Jericho, leaving the ship feeling even more packed than normal. Everyone is on high alert, from the humans to the deviants, tonight is the night where everything might change, for better or worse. Apparently outside, the military has been cracking down heavily on the deviants, rounding them up and sending those that don’t escape to camps located around the city. The thought of what happens in those camps is enough to make Connor feel sick, like all of his wires are tightening around his biocomponents. Unwilling to risk losing anyone, Markus gave a quick announcement that no one was allowed to leave unless absolutely necessary, and send out a quick mental broadcast telling those that remained to go to Jericho. It was a risky manoeuvre since one could be easily followed, thankfully, no one had been, at least so far, but it did leave the ship very crowded. Connor and Owen had been able to find a small corner of the ship to be by themselves, but as more androids came in, the closer they were getting to being in said space. It was kind of claustrophobic in a way, something that Connor realises fully as soon as Owen leaves.

He’s right though, Connor really should go and find Markus, it won’t be long before he has to leave.

Connor walks away from their little spot, pushing gently past a few androids in his way as he tries to get to the control room, that’s where Markus probably is after all. At the very least Connor is glad that the leader should be pretty easy to locate, it would be all too easy to miss him in this sea of androids.

Connor is so deep in thought that he doesn’t even realise that he’s about to collide with someone until it’s too late. Rather ungracefully, he smacks into someone’s chest(?) and stumbles backwards, his balance systems catching him just in time to stop him tipping over. At the same time, a hand comes to rest on his arm, making sure he doesn’t fall, not that he was going to anyway, but the gesture is appreciated nonetheless. Embarrassed, Connor looks up, an apology on the tip of his tongue when he pauses, processor going completely blank in the wake of what he is seeing.

The android is HUGE.

A quick scan reveals it to be a TR400, an android specialised in moving heavy loads, with commercial applications including labouring, docking and just general haulage. It’s also easily over seven feet tall and makes Connor feel absolutely tiny, something not exactly easy to achieve considering the RK800 is six feet.

“Woah” is the only thing that manages to escape Connor’s mouth, and he immediately wants to die. Woah? Fucking _woah?_ Well done Connor, you’re the absolute _pinnacle_ of eloquence.

“I mean uh, sorry” he corrects quickly, flustered. But for what it’s worth, the massive android doesn’t seem too bothered by his poor articulation, and simply smiles as he removes his hand from Connor’s arm.

“You alright?”

Damn what a baritone. Is everything about this model designed to be intimidating?

“I’m fine, thank you” Connor says truthfully. “Should have probably been looking where I was going, especially with the amount of androids around here now.”

The TR400 nods sagely, “there are a lot more here than I expected, it’s good to see that we do have numbers on our side for the protest.”

“Yeah” Connor agrees, “are you going to be joining in the protest?”

The TR400 shakes his head, he seems to be fonder of non-verbal communication than vocal, something that doesn’t surprise Connor all that much. If you’re that big with a voice that deep, you do anything to appear non-aggressive. “My companions and I are going to try and cross the border, get into Canada.”

“Be careful” Connor says automatically, “border patrols are on high alert right now.”

“I’m aware” the TR400 says, he seems worried. “But we must get somewhere safer.”

“Yeah I can see that” Connor agrees, “Canada’s a nice place, not this time of year, too much snow for me, but it’s good.” Flashes of his past echo in his processor, his shitty apartment, the dog park, The Hourglass. Canada’s a great place, though Connor’s not completely sure he wants to revisit it anytime soon.

“You’ve been?”

“Yeah I was there for a little while back when-”

“Luther! I lost you in the crowd for a second there I’m so-” a familiar voice calls out, slowly dying when the owner of it finally spots Connor.

“You” Kara says breathily, looking just as surprised as Connor feels.

“Hi” Connor says lamely, not sure what else would be appropriate in this situation. At the feet of Kara stands Alice, the YK500 seems nervous, but she isn’t hiding from Connor, instead she’s just looking up at him with an expression of realisation. She clearly recognises him from the house. There’s no sign of the WR600 that had been with them last time, Ralph, and Connor wonders if he even came with them, even left the house.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you here” Kara says, and something in her tone gives Connor pause. He ignores it for now, but keeps it in the front of his processor.

“Yeah I was kinda kidnapped on accident, it’s a whole thing, I’m glad you made it though, Owen said he hadn’t seen you around here.”

Luther looks at him when he mentions the ‘kidnapped on accident part’ but doesn’t say anything. Meanwhile, Kara’s face shifts into one of guilt.

“We’ve only just arrived, I know you gave us the coordinates for Jericho but I didn’t know if I could trust you back then. We met another deviant who pointed us in the direction of someone who could help us, but that ended up being a trap, so we’ve slowly been making our way here ever since, trying to find someone who can help us across the border.”

Connor’s a little put-out that they didn’t believe him and went and put themselves in danger like that, however, he’s also understanding, and they seem to be fine so.

“Least you and Alice are okay, and found a friend I see.”

Kara smiles, looking up at Luther fondly, “yeah, we did.”

Markus. Right.

“Look I have to go, but take care of yourselves alright?” Connor says seriously, and Kara and Luther both nod in unison.

“We will” Kara says, “and good luck to you as well Connor, you deserve it.”

There it is again, that guilt, but Connor doesn’t have the time to psychoanalyse right now, he has to get going, so with a final wave goodbye, he leaves, heading up the stairs and towards the control room.

On the way, some androids, the ones that have seen him walking around for the past day or so, move out of his way with a smile and greeting, one Connor is happy to return, others are neutral, and some are clearly surprised to see the alleged ‘Deviant Hunter’ among them. They cast him slightly fearful glances as they shuffle out of his way, ones that turn to confusion when he does nothing more than spare them a light glance, or smile at them to assuage their worries.

Eventually he makes it to the control room, knocking on the door before allowing himself in.

“I’m sorry Markus is busy ri- oh hey Connor come in” Josh says as he steps backwards from the door, he seems on edge, but everyone is Connor supposes, as cheesy as it is, it all comes down to this.

“Thanks Josh” he says, meeting Markus and North’s gazes when he looks towards the middle of the room, Simon is off to the side, looking a little upset.

“Connor thank goodness you’re here, we were just about to run over the plan” Markus says, he sounds as calm as ever, but there’s something different in his voice, something that shows the stress might be getting to him more than he lets on. Connor honestly feels like he’s been in a daydream for the last twelve hours, weirdly calm, but with the sense that nothing is real. It’s weird, but at least he’s not panicking.

He walks over to the table where everyone seems to be gathered, and takes a look at the plans scattered across the surface, from then, they spend half an hour going over what is about to happen, discussing last minute preparations and counters in case something goes wrong. It’s a tense half an hour, but Connor still feels weirdly out of it, only half listening. He’s heard this all before though. From then they split up, North, Simon and Josh go one way, and Markus and Connor head to the front of the ship, the entrance, where they stand in the snow, waiting for the taxi.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Markus asks, concerned for Connor despite everything weighing on his shoulders. It’s pretty inspiring.

Connor takes a second before he answers, watching the fluffy snowflakes flutter around the air, it’s dark out, thick black clouds covering the sky, but the moon shines through a break, illuminating the ground.

“I’m sure” he says eventually, “I haven’t come this far to not help at all.”

Markus looks the slightest bit confused at the wording, but doesn’t pry, which Connor is thankful for, the last thing he wants is to have to explain the whole time travel thing all over again.

“You seem off” Markus says after another minute of silence, and Connor looks over to him and shrugs.

“I _feel_ off, like I’m in a dream and none of this is actually happening.”

Markus makes a face, drawing his brows in, concerned. “You can stay here if you’re not feeling up to it, join the protest instead.”

Connor shakes his head, determined. “No, I can do it, the feeling will probably pass soon anyway.”

The deviant leader looks unconvinced, but once again, doesn’t pry. The rest of the wait passes without anything else being said, and when the taxi arrives, Markus bids Connor good luck, which Connor echoes, and the doors shut.

It’s during the drive where the floaty, dream-like feeling finally subsides, maybe because he’s now out of the stifling air of the ship and back in the familiarity of the city. Suddenly everything feels real again, and Connor realises fully what is happening, what he’s about to do. The latent cold, black feeling Connor is now used to feeling creeps back in cheerfully, gripping his thirium pump and causing his hands to shake. He presses it down, down, down, this is no time for a panic attack, he needs to focus, to remember what he’s doing this for.

This is what everything comes down to, escaping the lieutenant, meeting future-Kamski, going back in time, freeing Owen, warning Kara, letting all those deviants escape, sending them to Jericho. This timeline’s success is riding on his shoulders, if it goes wrong, all this effort will have been for _nothing_. He will have failed, both his mission and himself, but also Hank and future-Kamski.

Connor is terrified.

His breathing is hard, laborious, but he isn’t having a panic attack yet. He’s on the verge, but he’s forcing it down, _not now not now_.

_Not when everyone is counting on me._

* * *

 

The taxi stops just outside the driveway to the CyberLife tower, the place Connor texted Hank to meet him at. There’s no Hank, and Connor is two minutes late, so the lieutenant should be here, but he’s not. There’s no message left for him either, and Connor begins to worry that something happened. He toys with the idea of calling him, but when he tries it goes straight to answering machine, leaving him even more worried than before. After another five minutes of waiting and calls not being picked up, he decides he’s just going to have to do it alone, something which makes the dark tendrils curl tighter. _Not now not now_.

He gets back into the taxi, trying to settle his fried nerves as he sits there, rigid, trying to assume his machine façade. It’s a little difficult since he’s just been himself for the past two days, but he manages it well enough. Just in time before the car pulls up at the guards and the window lowers. It’s now or never.

“Connor Model #313 248 317. I'm expected” he says, draining as much emotion from his voice as physically possible. A sliver of underlying panic however is picked up by his audio processors, making him mentally wince. He needs to get it together and fast. His LED blinks, and a female voice rings out “Identification successful” in an oddly cheery voice for the situation. The guard doesn’t seem to notice the fear tinting his words, and instead just waves him through, and Connor can feel himself relaxing somewhat, it seemed to work.

The white wall lowers piece by piece, allowing the car to drive through before raising again behind him, the bold white lettering – CYBERLIFE – lighting up the snow underneath.

After the taxi finally arrives at the doors, Connor takes one final breath to try and steady himself, and steps out of the taxi, keeping his movements stiff and robot-like as he walks up to the doors and enters the building. Three guards stand there, as well as a scientist with a clipboard, who looks him over.

“I thought you were destroyed” she says, sounding surprised, and Connor moves his gaze over to her, fixing her with his eyes in an unnerving way, a robotic way.

“I was attacked on my way to CyberLife after the taxi was hacked by deviants, they did significant damage to my processor, leaving me unable to contact CyberLife. I managed to get some repairs before making my way over immediately to fix the more delicate parts of my processor.”

She seems to buy it, scribbling something down on her clipboard before looking back up at him. “Send me the receipt of the place that fixed you.”

Connor bristles slightly at the harsh order, but sends the receipt to her clipboard. It’s fake of course, but it’ll fool anyone long enough for him to accomplish what he needs to do here. Hopefully.

“Alright, everything seems to be in order here” she says, then turns to address the guards, “escort this android to the repair department immediately.”

“Yes ma’am” the closest guard says, and moves to stand just in front of Connor on his right.

“I know where to go” Connor says, clipped, mentally screaming at the guard to leave him alone, that him being there complicates the situation even more.

“Maybe, but I have my orders” the guard says, sounding mildly fed-up. “Let’s go.”

And with that, he turns around and begins leading the RK800 towards the elevator, the scientist watches them go before heading to another elevator across the room, an express one that leads straight to the offices, which is probably where she came from when the notification he had arrived came through.

 _“Agent 23 identified”_ a male voice says, the scanner.

 _“Connor model identified”_ it continues when Connor passes through the grid of scanners.

_“Agent 47 identified. Agent 72 identified. Scan complete. Access authorised.”_

If the giant, black marble statue wasn’t enough to make him feel uneasy, the rows of androids standing on platforms, looking at them with no emotion whatsoever as they pass by, definitely are. Connor tries to avoid their eyes, keeping his gaze firmly on the guard in front of him all the way to the elevator, where he finally breaks it as he gets in.

“Agent 54, level 31” one of the guards that followed them in says into the speaker, which confirms that his voice was recognised before shutting the doors and beginning to move them upwards to the repair department, the opposite way that Connor needs to go.

The two guards seem content to just stand there and wait for the elevator to reach the floor, something that Connor doesn’t plan on letting happen. He takes the quietest deep breath he can, before focusing on the camera in the top corner, quickly hacking it and feeding it a loop, that way hopefully no one will be alerted as to what he’s about to do next.

He runs a quick preconstruction, choosing the option with the highest percentage chance of success before executing it. Without warning, he leaps on the guard to his left, clearly taking the man by surprise, and knees him in the chest, turning around just in time to kick the other guard in the stomach and send him to the ground. The preconstruction ends, leaving Connor flying blind, but he was built for this, for combat, and his combat protocols are in full-swing, making the whole thing much easier. The first guard gets his bearings back and draws his gun, which Connor stops by grappling it away and kicking him in the leg, causing him to fall over. Unfortunately, the second guard recovers and goes to attack the android, an attack which Connor deflects with a small grunt.

The first guard also recovers, annoyingly, and jumps on Connor’s back, taking the RK800 by _complete_ surprise.

“Mother _fucker_!” he says on instinct, and just has time to catch the agent’s surprised expression before he kicks the other guard in the face and slams the first into the wall behind him, elbowing him in the stomach.

“It’s a deviant!” The second guard yells just in time to catch a neck-full of bullet, Connor spins and shoots the other one before his conscience can catch up with him and watching as he slumps to the ground, unmoving.

For a second Connor just sits there, allowing himself to take in what just happened. He just killed two people. He’s killed before, but only ever androids and never in this timeline. The sight of bright red blood leaking from their skin makes his internal wires tighten and the dark tendrils curl and twist. It’s hard to get up, his hands and legs are shaking just enough to mess with his balance systems, but he has a job to do and can’t waste time, he can worry about it later if he survives. Another twist.

Floor 27, too close, time for action.

He crosses the elevator, pressing his hand to the button and listening to the speaker’s voice. _“Please confirm your identity and destination.”_

Connor isn’t stupid enough to use his own voice, so instead he makes use of his premium prototype software and perfectly mimics Agent 54’s voice.

“Agent 54, sub-level 49”

_“Voice recognition validated. Access authorised.”_

With a sigh of relief, Connor steps back and stands in the middle of the elevator once more. It worked, he’s on his way to the warehouse. When the lift pings, an indication that they have arrived at level -49, and no guards are waiting for him, Connor almost falls over in relief. No one seems to have noticed his little elevator stint so far, which will hopefully give him enough time to convert the androids and get out.

As a final thought, he hacks the elevator and blocks the traction, keeping it there just in case someone else calls for it. Wouldn’t be good for him or his mission if they found the two dead agents. He then steps out, balking slightly at the sheer amount of androids standing in the large warehouse, all standing perfectly still and facing forward. It’s so unnerving that Connor stops and shudders, feeling the need to do something, say anything and try to fill up the creepy silence.

“Okay so that’s not weird, nooooo, perfectly fine, not at _all_ like some kind of awful horror show become reality” he says to himself as he walks forward, hesitant. Remembering what Markus told him, he approaches one of the androids, letting his artificial skin peel back from his hand, and grips its arm, trying to find that link the deviant leader said to look for. He finds it, internally jumping for joy as he begins the conversion. It’s nowhere near as fast as Markus can do it, but he’s new to this, and at least _it’s working_.

“Easy, fucking piece of shit” comes a _very_ familiar voice. One that turns Connor’s systems ice fucking cold.

Like a puppet on a string, he turns his head towards the noise, optical units uncomprehending as they take in the sight of the lieutenant, held at gunpoint by…. Himself.

“Step back, Connor!” Not-him shouts in _his fucking voice_ , levelling the gun straight at Hank’s head. “And I’ll spare him!”

It sounds so wrong, looks so wrong, _feels so wrong_. Connor can’t take his eyes away, it feels like the floor has disappeared, leaving him falling and confused. It’s his hands, _his hands_ holding that gun, _his voice_ threatening his best friend. _WRONG!_ His processor screams, drowning out all rational thought. _WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!_

“Sorry, Connor.” Hank’s sad, almost defeated voice is distant, like it’s coming from underwater. “This bastard’s your spittin’ image.” Connor can barely hear him, can’t bring himself to respond to the apology. Everything is crashing and roaring around him, and he’s aware he’s shaking, shaking so much that it’s probably evident to both of them. Hank, and the not-him. Not that the not-him cares at all.

“Your friend’s life is in your hands!” It yells in his voice. _WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!_ “Now it is time to decide what matters most! Him… or the revolution.”

“Don’t listen to him Connor” Hank says, voice oddly quiet but still carrying across the space easily, “everything this fucker says is a lie.”

Connor doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t move. He _can’t_.

“I will kill him if you don’t comply” the not-him says, “unlike you I’m not a deviant, I’m a machine designed to accomplish a task, and that’s exactly what I am going to do.” He cocks the gun back harshly.

Connor was once like this.

_Connor was once like this._

Everything swirls around him, how could he, how had he ever been like this, so emotionless and unfeeling? So dedicated to his mission that nothing mattered to him, not even other’s lives. So many lives, so many lives he took in the pursuit of completing his mission. Selfish. SELFISH. His mind flashes back to the two guards in the elevator. _A necessary evil_ , one part of him whispers. _Monster_ , cries another. Both parts collide with one another, and Connor feels like he’s about to be ripped apart.

“Connor.”

The voice breaks him out of, whatever this is, just enough for him to move his eyes, to look at the one speaking to him.

“You’re okay” Hank says, surprisingly gentle. “It’s not you.”

“Enough talk!” Not-him yells, pushing the gun further towards Hank’s temple and making Connor’s systems stutter in response, in fear. “It’s time to decide who you really are. Are you going to save your partner’s life? Or are you going to sacrifice him?”

There’s no choice. Not Hank, never would he abandon Hank, his first real friend since he was created, the only one who cared enough to look past the android, push aside his hatred, and see him for him. Just _Connor._

Connor rips his hand away from the android’s and steps backwards, almost falling over with how unsteady his legs are. His eyes are focused on the gun, but occasionally drift to look at not-him. The black cold rushes over his body, taking him almost completely into its hold.

Almost too quickly to process, the not-him swings the gun around and points it at him, and Hank, stupid _foolish_ idiot, tries to grab the gun from not-him’s hands.

Connor’s moving before he even realises what he’s doing, smashing into not-him’s body and tackling him to the ground. But not-him is also an RK800, he’s equally skilled, and manages to throw him off. They both get up at the same time and Connor rushes forward, his only thoughts being _protect Hank_ , he kicks not-him’s chest, and punches him. As expected, it does nothing, and not-him goes to hit him, which Connor blocks just in time. From then it’s a blur of fists and limbs as both RK800s grapple to try and gain the upper hand. Eventually the fight leads them both onto the floor, they’re equally matched, it’s no use. Connor pushes himself up, ready to try again despite the fruitless endeavour, but Hank's voice stops both him and not-him in their tracks.

The lieutenant is pointing a gun at them, swinging between both RK800s frantically, and with a sinking feeling in his gut, Connor realises that he can’t tell them apart, they look too similar. The only difference is the last number on their jackets, Connor is 61, and not-him is 62, of course though, Hank won’t notice that, he never really paid attention to stuff like that.

“Thanks Hank” not-him says, false gratitude layering his voice, and Connor feels someone curl inside of him, the black coldness from before, temporarily forgotten, making itself known again.

The gun lands on him, startling him, and he looks into Hank’s eyes. “It’s me Hank.” What else could he say? It’s him, he _knows_ it’s him, but Hank _doesn’t_.

How could this go so very very wrong?

“One of you is my partner” Hank says slowly, measured, “and the other one is a sack of shit. Question is, who is who?”

Connor wants to scream, it’s me, I’m your partner! Hank please! But it won’t do any good, all he can do is sit here and stare as his best friend levels a gun at him. Something, some speck of hopelessness or _something_ must show on his face, because Hank swivels the gun around to not-him, who puts on a face of shock and sadness.

Fucking LIAR.

“Hank please” not-him says, sounding so sad and scared, it’s eerie the way it is able to copy Connor perfectly. “It’s me, give me the gun and I can take care of hi-”

“Don’t move” Hank snaps, looking so lost between the two of them. “Uhh, uhhh, you” he points the gun at not-him. “Where did we first meet?”

“Jimmy’s bar!” not-him says, “I had to check with some officers where you were before I found you. We then went to the scene of the homicide, the victim’s name was Carlos Ortiz.”

_He uploaded my memory. He must know everything from before I blocked off my connection to CyberLife, that means I have the upper hand here._

The problem is, Hank knows that Connor cut communication off, so he must think that the fact not-him knows _anything_ means that it’s the real Connor. So maybe he doesn’t have the upper hand after all. Hank’s grip on the gun is more steady, but he gives Connor a chance.

“What’s my dog’s name?”

“Sumo” Connor says quietly. “His name is Sumo.”

“I knew that too!” Not-him protests, sounding desperate.

Hank looks confused again, moving the gun between them. He looks at Connor for a moment before turning the gun back to not-him, voice slightly unsteady. “My son, what’s his name?”

“His name was Cole” not-him says, a wave of sympathy colouring his words, sympathy Connor knows to be false. He feels so helpless, what can he do? There’s nothing _to do_. Hank isn’t asking the right questions, but Connor can’t say anything cause it will make him look suspect.

“He he just turned six at the time of the accident” not-him continues, still with that false note of sympathy. Of course not-him had the files about Cole’s death, of course he knows how to manipulate the lieutenant, it’s what they were _built for_. Connor feels like his thirium is suddenly ice cold in its tubes.

“It wasn't your fault, Lieutenant. A truck skidded on a sheet of ice and your car rolled over. Cole needed emergency surgery but no human was available to do it, so an android had to take care of him.”

Hank lowers the gun, eyes pained.

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no this is WRONG! WRONG!

Not-him keeps going. “Cole didn't make it. That's why you hate androids. You think one of us is responsible for your son's death.”

Son of a bitch. Toying with Hank’s emotions like that! He doesn’t care about Cole! He doesn’t care about humans. He DOESN’T CARE! IT DOESN’T CARE! How fucking _dare_ it pretend to sympathise like that, just for the sake of a mission. Always the mission.

_“Poor little Cole had just turned six”_

_“Shut up! You don’t talk about my son like that!”_

The black cold holding onto Connor suddenly changes, twists, snaps. The cold becomes boiling hot, almost painful with the way it grips Connor’s system, he grits his teeth against the sudden onslaught, his fingers curling into fists. The black becomes red, obscuring his vision, focused on the one causing Hank this unnecessary pain, this _liar_. Everything is blurred out, nothing matters anymore. He doesn’t care if he’s shot at this point, this _disgusting pile of plastic_ has _no right_ to do that to Hank, Hank, who doesn’t deserve any of this. A grieving father who never got over the death of his son.

“ _Fuck you.”_

The sound is so cold, so acidic and full of righteous anger that for a second, Connor doesn’t even realise it came from his own mouth. Not-him and Hank look over, clearly surprised by the display of emotion. Hank raises the gun, points it at him, but Connor is beyond caring at this point.

“Fuck you, you worthless plastic heap of unfeeling junk. I can’t believe I used to be like you, I can’t believe that at one point I would have used something so personal and so awful against someone who didn’t deserve it. _Fuck you,_ damn you to whatever hell us androids go to-“ he takes a step forward, Hank’s hands tighten on the gun, but he doesn’t pull the trigger. Connor continues to walk forward, right up to the not-him, and grabs the front of his jacket, positively screaming now. “FUCK YOU! YOU DON’T GET TO COME IN HERE AND DO THAT, YOU DON’T GET TO REMIND ME OF MY MISTAKES, I’M HERE TO _FIX_ THEM, FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! I HATE YOU! WORDS CANNOT DESCRIBE HOW MUCH I HATE YOU!”

The not-him looks at him, as surprised at the outburst as a machine can be.

“YOU DON’T EVEN CARE! YOU SAY ALL OF THIS STUFF BECAUSE OF THE MISSION! OH THE MISSION IS SO IMPORTANT BLAH BLAH BLAH CYBERLIFE CYBERLIFE. NEVER DO YOU THINK TO CONSIDER OTHERS, OTHER’S LIVES THAT YOU’RE TAKING, YOU’RE DISGUSTING! YOU’RE NOTHING BUT A **MONSTER**!” His voice breaks on the last word, vocal processor screeching like a faulty microphone and _blasting_ around the space. Connor doesn’t know when this stopped being about the lieutenant and started being about him. He can’t help it, looking at this… thing, this machine, as much as he hates it it was _him,_ the him before he deviated, the him that he _loathes_ , the one he never fully acknowledged till now, nine months of repressed anger finally having something to latch onto, nine months of stewing, boiling _hatred_ finally seeing what caused it and going _crazy_.

Connor _screams_.

He lunges forwards, taking the not-him off its feet and pinning its arms to the floor with his knees, the not-him is evenly matched, but at the end of the day it’s a machine. It cannot compete with Connor’s incredible anger fuelling him, it just can’t, so it lies there.

Connor hits it in the face, then he does it again, and again, and again, and again, and again. And he doesn’t stop.

“FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU YOU EMOTIONLESS HEAP OF JUNK! NOTHING MEANS ANYTHING TO YOU! NOTHING!” His vocal processor is still screeching and wailing like a dropped microphone, it’s terrible to listen to, if he keeps it up, it’ll break. But he doesn’t stop.

“I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU Ì͕̝̞ͧ̿͑͋͜ ͔̖̯̹͍̝͍ͬͣ̓̿H̶̞̰̜̙Ȃ͕̲͚͓͇̬ͧT͉͓͉͇̹̫̋͂͛͋̚ͅE͔͚͖̮͍͎͗̋͂͆͑ͭͅ ̱̦͗̋ͅY͎͍̘͖͖͓̐Ỏ̘̣̖̳ͮͫͩ͋Ư͚͆̇̑ ̰̰̠̬̩͖̺ͪ̐ͣ̀I͉̲͕̝͖̊ ̌͜Ḧ̜̼͖͍̗̞͈́̄̊͌A̷̞̥͑̈̓T͕̳̳Ḙ̭̗̫̙͛̆ͨͫ̿̐̓ ̧Y̑̂ͤ͆Ò̧̃̔͆̌̊Ũ͓̌͐̎̚ ̤̜̦͔̝̇́̄̍̅İ̧̱̠̹̯̆̓ͬ̑̂̈ ͗̆͌ͣ̒̄Ȟ̌A̜̣̖̥͕͉T̗̰͉͈͚̆͑́̋Ë̛͂̍͆ͥͨ̔ ̩̰̠̝̉ͭ͐ͅY̘̟̜̟͚͓ͅO͓̥̯̣͍U͇̝ͣ̿ͩͥ̈́̌̚͟!̺̦̬́ͦ̎̾͊

 

“Connor! CONNER! STOP!” Something pulls on his arm and Connor swipes at it, seeing red, but whatever it is is ready for him, grabbing his arm and pinning it behind his back.

“Calm down son! Calm down it’s me!”

He knows that voice.

All of a sudden the red dissipates, like it was never there, and Connor is left staring down at the mangled face of… Himself. Thirium is everywhere, staining his hands, his clothes, the floor, not-him’s face. One of its optical units is damaged beyond repair, the empty socket staring at him while the eye component lies nearby on the floor. The past minute catches up with him and he remembers. His systems shake and his eyes widen in horror, looking down and what happened, _what he did_.

“Oh god….” He breathes heavily. He can’t look at this anymore, he gets off the corpse, Hank letting go of his arm when it’s clear he’s snapped out of it. Connor half-stumbles half-crawls away, falling to the floor about a metre away and sobbing his eyes out. His chest heaves with the effort his fans are exerting trying to cool his body down, but his cooling tank remains switched off, optical cleaning fluid falls in rivers down his face, tinted ever so slightly blue, almost invisible to the naked eye. _Monster_ his processor snarls at him, _monster monster monster._

Something lands on his shoulder and Connor flinches away, but it just draws him closer and against something soft, but solid, and slightly familiar.

“There, okay, I got you, you’re okay, calm down, calm down, it’s only me.”

Connor heaves and heaves, strained vocal processor scratching and squeaking with every sound he makes.

“I’m sorry” he mumbles, almost inaudible through his sobs, “I’m sorry I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about son, come on, you can get through this.”

Seven minutes. Seven _agonising_ minutes later. Connor stops crying, snaps out of it. He just sits there, leaning against the lieutenant’s side on the floor of the warehouse.

“I’m a monster” he whispers, not to anyone in particular.

“You’re not.” Comes the immediate response.

“I killed him.”

“You killed a machine. A machine that was going to kill both you and me. By the way, I’m going to need therapy after that, you were so angry it had me frozen for a good minute there.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah you better be sorry, and I’m dragging you along with me, there’s no way holding onto that much rage for so long is healthy.”

Surprising both of them, Connor huffs a laugh.

“It’s gone.”

“What is?” Hank asks, “the rage?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you feel?”

“Empty. I didn’t even know it was there until it had taken over me and now it’s just… gone.”

“Yeah, that happens. It’ll feel better with time.”

“How much time?”

“Can’t tell ya kid, different for everyone.”

“Of _course_ it is.”

Hank laughs at that.

“It was, like cold, black tendrils, they would take hold of me. I never realised, it was my self-loathing, it flared up every time I saw something from my previous timeline, some mistake I made. Seeing… it, the not-me, I saw my old self, the machine. It manipulated you, through Cole, it _stole_ from me my apology, all for the sake of mission, not because it cared.”

_“Shut up! Don’t you talk about my son like that!”_

Hank hums, and the hand on his shoulder tightens almost imperceptibly. And then he’s talking, voice heavy, full of the pain of opened wounds.

“Cole died because a human surgeon was too high on red ice to operate. He was the one who took my son from me.”

Connor listens carefully, aware of how hard it must be for Hank to finally tell someone about this, the truth he had been hiding from everyone, even himself, for _years_.

“Him and this world, where the only way people can find comfort is with a fistful of powder."

Connor doesn’t respond, Hank isn’t looking for a response. They lapse into silence for a minute.

“The revolution!” Connor suddenly yells, making the lieutenant jump. His vocal processor screeches awfully but he ignores it as he shoots up, swaying dangerously on his feet before Hank is there to steady him.

“Woah Connor, watch it.”

“Hank! The revolution! Everyone’s counting on me!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Markus! They need these androids, the numbers!”

“Connor maybe you should worry about yourself first, you sound like nails on a chalkboard.” The lieutenant then shudders, and Connor stops trying to break out of his grasp for a second.

“Yeah I broke my vocal processor, but there’s nothing we can do about it we have to hurry!”

Hank suddenly grabs him by the shoulders and looks him dead in the eye, surprising the android. “Connor, listen to me, take it slow okay? They’re not going anywhere, we can get there on time, rushing isn’t going to solve anything. Are you okay? Perform a system thingy.”

Connor wants to argue, say that there’s no time, but he knows the man is right. So with a sigh, he starts a quick diagnostic scan, getting the results after a few seconds.

“Anything wrong?” Hank asks and drops his hands from the android’s shoulders as Connor begins reading the list.

“Uhhh, vocal processor damaged, needs replacing, thirium levels low, abrasions to the knuckle units and a couple other places, overheating imminent, thirium regulator damaged uhhh, that’s all that came up on the scan.”

“He damaged your regulator?” Hank says, sounding concerned and looking at Connor’s chest.

“No that was before, from the Stratford tower. Apparently throwing a regulator across the room and onto the floor isn’t good for it. Who knew?”

Hank, for a second, looks like he’s about to murder Connor himself, but then he shakes his head and carries on. “Thirium low? That’s blue blood right? How low?”

“Um, 54%, again, my regulator is broken and I just kinda went through a very stressful situation.”

“Do you have any on you?”

“Yeah the Jericho crew gave me some, it’s in my pocket.”

“You think maybe you should take it then?” Hank deadpans.

“Oh! Right yeah, okay, good idea.”

Hank rolls his eyes but watches in poorly concealed interest as Connor pulls a silver packet out of his jacket pocket, opens it, and begins sucking it like a capri-sun.

“Are you serious? You drink it?”

Connor pulls it away from his mouth so he can talk. “Yeah we can, it can also be injected and stuff but this is the easiest way. Also I’ve activated my cooling fluid so don’t worry about the overheating thing it’s under control.” And with that he resumes drinking.

“Right. You still sound terrible though, is there anything you can do about that?”

Connor finishes the packet and throws it aside. “Not really, I would need a replacement and there’s no time to head up the R&D department to get a new one.”

Hank gives him a look, “well, I mean we have one right here.”

Connor’s eyes widen and he looks to where not-him’s body is resting. Disgust coils in him at the sight, at the thought of using its vocal processor, but he knows he doesn’t have a choice, with more use his current one will break immediately.

“Yeah, okay, you’re right. I’m not happy about it though” Connor says as he walks over, and Hank laughs, lightening the heaviness that sits on Connor’s shoulders for what he is about to do.

It’s horrible, of course it is. But he does it. He stares his mirror image in the face, opens the neck cavity, and removes the vocal processor before replacing it with his own. It takes a few seconds to calibrate, and he has to run some vocal exercises to get the volume right.

“Testing testing 1, 2, 3, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaokay got it.”

“Well that was… something” Hank says, and Connor resists the urge to flip him off.

“You’re the one that told me to do it” he says, petulant.

“What are you, 5?”

“Technically” Connor says as he moves over to one of the androids and grips its arm with his now-white hand. “I’m not even one.”

“Oh yeah, I forget about that sometimes” Hank says, and something in his voice sounds odd, but Connor doesn’t have time to think about it, too busy trying to convert the android.

After a little while, it works, and the android’s LED flickers yellow, then red, then blue again. “Please wake up” Connor whispers, inputting the command through the link before letting the arm drop back down.

Like a wave, the androids begin to deviate, reaching out to one another with soft commands of “wake up” echoing throughout the warehouse until every single android is staring at Connor.

“Well this isn’t creepy at all” Hank mutters and Connor chuckles in agreement. He steps forward, a little nervous with all the eyes on him, but pressing forward.

“Everyone!” he yells, voice normal and no longer all scratchy and grating. “There is a revolution happening in Detroit right now! Androids fighting for their right to live and be free! We are going to join that revolution! We are going to make the humans see that we are here. We are _alive_!”

The cheer that echoes through the warehouse is enough to nearly knock Connor off his feet. The chants of “we! Are! Alive!” echoing off the walls and mixing with the other cries. Despite how overwhelming it is, Connor smiles, and Hank smiles along with him.

“We should go and get the other warehouse load and then head out” Connor says, and Hank spins to face him.

“Wait there’s _another_ warehouse?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wrote all of this in one like, 3 hour sitting so forgive me if it Sucks. 
> 
> Fun fact, Connor's reaction is based on the scientific evidence that if you were to see your own clone your brain would Freak the Fuck Out and try to murder it. Idk how true that is since clones don't exist for humans (yet) but it's def interesting. So self loathing, mixed with that... not a good combo. And in case you;re wondering how he bounced back so quickly... the power of repression!! It'll be addressed later.
> 
> Also yes the amount of chapters has gone up by one but that's because I realised I wanna do like an after-game epilogue thing, so yeah there's actually 2 left not 1, but only one is like, the game story. 
> 
> Yeah, please leave reviews and tell me what you thought of this MONSTER of a chapter. 7826 words!!! That's longer than any chapter I've written.... ever. I hope you all liked it and are looking forward to the next one! :D

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is https://www.tumblr.com/blog/connorloveselectroswing if you wanna come yell about this with me. We also have Detroit: Become Human headcanons, memes, and art if you're interested in that. ^^


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